The TXE1 was developed by three members of the Joint Electronic Research Committee (JERC) which was formed in 1956 and lasted until 1969. The JERC consisted of the GPO, Siemens Brothers (later AEI), Automatic Telephone and Electric (later Plessey), the Ericsson Telephones (also later Plessey), General Electric Company (GEC), and Standard Telephones and Cables (STC). STC built the common control, AEI the switching and scanners, line scanning and test console, and AT&E the dialling capturing equipment (registers) and the incoming and outgoing junctions. (A 'junction' in British telephonic terms was not a junction in the everyday sense, but the name given to the pair of wires connecting a call between a satellite exchange and the main exchange.) The development of the TXE1 started around 1963. There were models of the AEI equipment at Blackheath and the ATE equipment at Edge Lane, Liverpool. AEI called TXE1 their REX (reed electronic exchanges).