United Kingdom issued a report to Parliament and noted that: "As regards life standards, before the Phoebus Agreement and to this day the general service filament lamp was and is designed to have, on average, a minimum life of 1,000 hours. It has often been alleged—though not in evidence to us—that the Phoebus organisation artificially made the life of a lamp short with the object of increasing the number of lamps sold. As we have explained in Chapter 9, there can be no absolutely right life for the many varying circumstances to be found among the consumers in any given country, so that any standard life must always represent a compromise between conflicting factors. B.S.I, has always adopted a single life standard for general service filament lamps, and the representatives of both B.S.I, and B.E.A., as well as most lamp manufacturers, have told us in evidence that they regard 1,000 hours as the best compromise possible at the present time, nor has an evidence been offered to us to the contrary. Accordingly we must dismiss as misconceived the allegation referred to above." In popular culture In Gravity's Rainbow (1973), Thomas Pynchon wrote about "Byron the Bulb", an anthropomorphic eternal lightbulb who fights against the Phoebus Cartel. Pynchon's story has been credited with bringing the Phoebus Cartel to the public eye. See also Planned obsolescence Centennial Light References Further reading External links Patrick Gaughen "Structural Inefficiency in the Early Twentieth Century: Studies in the Aluminum and Incandescent Lamp Markets" Social Science 610, December, 1998, 36 pp. U K Monopolies Commission "Report on the Supply of Electric Lamps", His Majesty's Stationery Office, London, October 1951, v + 199 pp. Markus Krajewski "The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy" IEEE Spectrum, September, 2014. Cosima Dannoritzer "The Light Bulb Conspiracy - Extended Video Version" New World News Network, August 8, 2016 Planet Money Podcast "Episode 902: The Phoebus Cartel" npr.org, 27 March 2019 Cartels Incandescent light bulbs Organisations based in Geneva 1925 establishments in Switzerland 1938 disestablishments in Switzerland