“As a child growing up in Tehran, I would visit my grandparents in their rural community, and I was appalled at the speed of their internet. They couldn’t upload their medical documents. It wasn’t fair; they needed faster broadband.”
That’s the origin story Erfan Nouraee — a 22-year-old electrical engineer based at York University in Toronto — told Telecompetitor in an interview.
Nouraee was interested in engineering as a child. He said his mother tells stories of him taking apart electronic toys to play with the circuit boards inside and using a hot glue gun to put them back together.
After experiencing his grandparents’ insufficient broadband, Nouraee started thinking about how he could help rural communities have access to faster broadband.
The scene moves to Canada, where Nouraee’s family immigrated when he was younger.
As a bright college physics student at York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering, Nouraee “did more than 700 hours of research in the laboratory,” studying photonics and, specifically, the movement of light through fiber cables.
That led to the birth of the Photon Detector, a device that extends the life of fiber cables and helps increase their environmental sustainability.
Most importantly for rural broadband users, though, the Photon Detector — when connected to a fiber cable that has slower speeds — reduces the noise-to-signal ratio in fiber cables and, as a result, delivers faster broadband along the same line.
How much faster? Nouraee didn’t have details on hand, and the patent he obtained from Canada doesn’t provide specifics.
But that hasn’t stopped Nouraee from receiving plaudits for his invention. In 2021, Nouraee won a bronze medal at an International Federation of Inventors Association competition in Geneva.
“Among the criteria considered by the judges were the invention’s green or sustainable attributes, its commercialization potential and readiness for market, did it meet a public demand, involve high technology, have the potential for economic impact, and was it or could it qualify for a patent,” reported York University.
Fiberlink — Nouraee’s nascent company, via which he hopes the Photon Detector will be released — does not yet have a timeline for a public launch of the device. Right now, Nouraee is seeking investments beyond the $50,000 pledged by York University’s business incubator.
Nouraee hopes that once the Photon Detector comes to market, it will be a far less expensive solution for faster broadband than those currently available. “It will be much cheaper than devices like Starlink, which are really expensive,” said Nouraee. “My device uses advanced algorithms and special sensors to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband capable of things like gaming.”
Nouraee is a young man with a big vision for faster broadband in rural areas. For now, the promise of the Photon Detector remains to be realized.