From Flowers to Fibre
The Flowers to Fibre exhibition at The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) is an interactive showcase developed in partnership with The Communications Museum Trust (CMT). Running from March 2025 to March 2026, it explores the evolution of Britain's telecommunications network, highlighting the transition from copper-based telephone systems to modern fibre-optic technology.
This exhibition celebrates the work of Tommy Flowers, best known for designing Colossus, but also a key figure in transforming the UK's phone networks. His pioneering efforts, alongside those of General Post Office (GPO) and British Telecom (BT) engineers, laid the groundwork for Britain's digital infrastructure, including the world's first digital phone exchanges.
Flowers and his successors at the General Post Office (GPO) and British Telecom (BT) worked for half a century starting in 1947 to make the existing copper voice network a faster and more reliable vehicle for the digital services we enjoy today. They not only turned research into core principles of technology underpinning telecoms - including fibre – they also built the world’s first digital phone exchanges in Britain.
The joint TNMOC and CMT exhibition Flowers to Fibre takes visitors on a journey through this often overlooked story: from first pilots of the prototype digital exchanges to the planned national switch from copper to fibre after 2025.
The Flowers to Fibre exhibition is a hands-on, interactive experience that includes:
A working example of early Strowger electro-mechanical telephone exchange equipment that dominated the national phone network.
Rare examples of components from the early modern exchanges, a prototype of System X digital telephone switching system, and ADSL pilot equipment from the dawn of Britain’s broadband.
The chance to experience “dial-up internet” today with the technology of the past – a 1990s’ PC/modem.
Press material from coverage of the GPO’s very first, ground-breaking digital-exchange pilot.
