A new browser extension helps Australian house hunters check NBN availability


A new browser extension allows users to check if a property has NBN access. Photo: TND
Ever found yourself eyeing up an online property listing and asked yourself whether the place has access to the NBN?
Perhaps you work from home and donât want your voice to become a garbled mess midway through an important Zoom meeting if you move in.
Well, thereâs a browser extension for that.
NBN Availability Check automatically adds key information about a propertyâs internet connection to the online listing you are looking at.
It is available for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox and works with listings on Domain, Realestate.com.au and other sites, displaying information such as the propertyâs typical internet speed and the type of NBN connection it has (i.e. fibre to the curb or fibre to the node).
NBN Availability Check was created by 18-year-old Luke Prior, who is moving to Sydney from Newcastle to start studying computer science at uni.
âEveryoneâs got their Zoom meetings and school online,â he told The New Daily.
âIt has become even more important. If youâve got bad internet at your place, you really need to know what itâs like.
âSo that was my main motivation.â

The NBN Availability Check browser extension automatically puts internet details underneath the amount of rooms for each property listing. Photo: Supplied
In the past, house hunters had to manually enter the address of a property into the NBNâs website to find this information.
âItâs really quite a big rigmarole,â Mr Prior said.
His browser extension does the work automatically.

NBN Availability Check works for Domain, Realestate.com.au, and several other Australian property websites. Photo: Supplied
Internet speed is becoming increasingly important for Australian house hunters.
Buyerâs agent and host of the Buy Your Side podcast Michelle May says nowadays, people are not just buying a home â theyâre often buying a workplace or study space, too.
Having NBN access is a key factor in those decisions.
âIt does affect your value, because if you canât work from home, then you seriously have to think about it,â Ms May told TND.
âSo having this browser extension where people see it from the get go, itâs definitely going to influence whether people are going to go for it, and itâs going to influence the price they pay for it.â
Thatâs the kind of response the tool has received just days after being released.
When Mr Prior shared his new tool on the main Australian subreddit, thousands of people upvoted it.
âIt was a mix of people complaining about their own internet,â he said.
âAnd the other half were saying how helpful it is because they always had to go and manually check everything.â
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