In a related vein, two recent demo night pitches at 106 MIles Socal which are closely related:

Oval Integration -- Working with 6LoWPAN (ipv6 controlled smart lightbulbs):

And Sunnox, who puts solar panels on street light poles, and establishes a mesh wifi network on top:

These are freakin sweet!

So how long before this becomes real? 10 years? 5 years?

The ip6 lightbulbs are shipping now, and more products coming to market in next few months. Sunnox the technology is real, the stumbling block is just getting it to be adopted by municipalities. They provide a HUGE cost savings, but there is an artificially high degree of bureaucracy in getting them adopted. .

Ah, so government needs to be part of the solution.

That's tricky -- it could happen soon or not at all, depending.