3,870 reviews
AI reviews summary
MATE’s overall sentiment is highly polarised, characterised by a sharp divide between exceptional customer service and deteriorating network reliability. While the Australian-based support team—specifically individuals like Cameron and Laurent—receives overwhelming praise for their patience and technical assistance, a significant segment of users reports frequent dropouts, severe congestion during peak periods, and inconsistent speeds. Recent price increases and the introduction of payment surcharges have further frustrated long-term customers.
Pros
- Exceptional Support Staff: Numerous reviewers highlight specific team members for their patience, technical knowledge, and ability to guide non-tech-savvy users through complex setups.
- Aussie-Based Service: The domestic call centre is a major highlight, with users valuing the clear communication and the absence of scripted responses.
- Seamless Onboarding: For many, the initial sign-up and connection process is extremely fast, often taking only minutes to an hour to get online.
- Promotional Value: The partnership with NAB providing monthly discounts is frequently cited as a key reason for joining and a significant cost benefit.
Cons
- Network Instability: A recurring and serious complaint involves frequent daily dropouts and high latency (ping), making the service unreliable for working from home, video conferencing, and gaming.
- Peak-Hour Congestion: Users report significant speed degradation during evening hours, with some noting that while speed tests appear fine, actual streaming and browsing performance is poor.
- Billing and Fee Issues: Recent price hikes, the introduction of a 1% payment surcharge, and difficulties in cancelling services or receiving refunds have caused significant dissatisfaction.
- Hardware Limitations: Several reports indicate that MATE-provided routers may underperform on higher-tier plans, and tech support occasionally blames user hardware for what users perceive as network-side faults.
Verdict
MATE is a strong contender for those who prioritise high-quality, local customer support and are looking for competitive promotional pricing. However, it may be unsuitable for power users, gamers, or remote workers who require a perfectly stable connection, as network reliability and congestion appear to be significant recurring issues.
Just wanted to shout out Laurents pleasant, patient and friendly customer service manners. He was careful about his accuracy while processing my request for Voip. He was also timely and friendly. Thanks mate! Show reply
Cameron was a great service representative. Great attention to detail and picked up on the fact that I forgot to apply the promo code for the sign up rates and got it applied. Great start to signing up with Mate Show details · 1
On this particular occasion I was on a call with Larry and it was awesome. Super simple and not complicated at all. Honesty, it sums up all of my experiences when having to call Mate for assistance and I've been a customer for over six years now. Over six years and customer service is still without fault. Not to mention, I have also had six years… Read more · 1
of quality internet. I upgraded recently to the 500/50 plan and they helped me every step of the way. Flawless.
Reviews with attachments
No interruptions . No freezing Love my mate . Fair dinkum value for money Show details · 1
Fantastic speed. Changed from Dodo to Mate. Much faster than before. Show details · 1
Pretty happy with it. Peak speeds are very reasonable. I was able to download some large (100+gb) games off Steam which were done in a short space of time. General surfing is great. Can stream Netflix and game at the same time with no lag so I can't complain there. Overall it's a fairly reliable connection at this stage. Show details · 1
Everything worked really easily even with a Telstra Modem. Coverage is reliable with no dropouts. I would like to know how much data I use each billing service. Can this happen? Show details · 1
- +1
Service was great while it lasted, basically never faced constant dropouts and terrible jitter until I did, even though there were outages every now and then they were rare. But once I submit a fault on their website for the service, literally no reply even after about a week. This is crazy because I thought they were known for good customer… Read more
support. I was getting consistent ping spikes of 222ms to 232ms and sometimes even 500+, pinged google's dns and got up to 30ms around 1/10 of the time and sometimes request timed out. Turning off the router and and nbn seemed to work for a tiny bit but there is clearly still some underlying issue. Aside from those spikes the internet speed pretty accurate wise looking at the download speeds.
Literally no point in apologising on here when there are several others that wouldn't even point this out on here so I don't know why does it have to be people here getting special treatment. This has also happened recently around when they announced they were expanding on ipv6 addresses or something. I will update on here how long it took for me to get my reply on the submission of the fault.
Internet speed is pathetic. Signed up for 100/20 deal and this is what I get - 37 mbps download speed. Show details
Hi Tahsin, we’re really sorry to hear you’re not getting the… Read more
Latest follow-ups
Excellent service so far. When I first sign up, I felt skeptic and wasn’t really expecting much but to my surprised it did exceeded my expectation. I was connected quick and my FTTN broadband was up and running in minutes. The internet speed that I… Read more · 1
signed up is consistent as advertised. Thanks MATE for the seamless connection and fast internet experience.
Follow-up · I’m incredibly happy with the service. I’ve been using it for over two months now, and the internet speed I chose at sign-up has been excellent and consistently stable. They truly delivered on their promises. I’m so glad I chose them over the traditional internet service providers I was considering at the time. Keep up the great work, MATE!
Switch across was quick - internet was only down for a short while. I was on another provider and my VPN from work was dropping out a lot and that has stopped happening, no idea why it was but stoked it's now seamless. Fast, good price, can't complain. Show details · 1
Follow-up · Apparently I've been asked: How was customer support? No idea - have not had any reason to contact them What about evening speeds? Fast, eg installed a large game on steam quickly at 6pm Any other issues encountered? None, solid service no issues
One of the best experiences I have ever had. The Customer Service Agent Cameron, was simply so very helpful and couldn't do enough to make porting over to Mate Communicate any easier if he tried. So, a huge thank you Cameron, and I forward to a long association with you MATE. Show details · 1
Follow-up · Nothing has changed. No hiccups. Still great service from your Company. No unexpected fees. Great value for money. All ok, ty.
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Positive reviews
I had a billing query and needed a NAB promotion applied to my existing service. Got connected to Cameron and he was extremely helpful and made the necessary adjustments. Overall had a great experience. Show details · 1
Spoke with Lachlan on the phone today, who was very knowledgeable and helpful, fixed my problem and treated me with respect. With more services like this, with good communication, the world is a better place. Show reply
Zel has been incredibly helpful and patient. She made the process of relocation extremely easy and seamless and fixed any issues I had in the past with internet. Show details · 1
Negative reviews
I was a client for about 8 years and used to be so impressed by them. Their technical guys used to be really knowledgeable and helpful and I recommended them to many of my mates. Over the last few years, they have gone down dramatically. Recently I am had a few challenges with bad connection speeds and an NBN power supply that was faulty. Their… Read more
service was pitiful - always blaming my router (despite me getting a new one at their request), taking zero responsibility, zero effort. I moved to a new provider and suddenly my connection is fast and stable and they are sorting out a power connector issue on the nbn box too. Same router, no problems. Dont waste your time with Mate, they are not your mates
Hi Warwick, we’re sorry to hear you’ve been left feeling… Read more
Took nearly 1 month to port our existing number to our home phone service. When it finally started connecting calls it prefixed the australian country code to the calling number 61nnnnnnnn. This prefix made it impossible for our hardware to match the number in its contacts list even whenwe added the 61 prefix to the contact's number. When we… Read more
complained and asked for them to remove the prfix from incoming calls we were told it was IMPOSSIBLE. in other words "STIFF CHEDDAR". So we reverted to our original ISP and it al works perfectly again! Lasted 6 weeks all up and about 20 hours on the waiting queue to register a complaint and ask for progress reports!!!!
Hi there, we’re sorry to hear this was your experience. We… Read more
Internet very unstable. I can not even watch the Facebook reels, it would not load. Many times I called them and they take me through some process and it would initially be slightly better then would go back to the slow pace. I changed a modem a few months ago, bought a new one for 350 dollars, and it made no difference. I had to use wire to… Read more
conect my computer which I use for work. I have fibreoptic wiring to my home but it is worse then copper wiring in my frends house- my phone works there just fine. So it is not my phone which is a problem. I would not recomend it.
Hi Elena, we’re really sorry to hear this has been your… Read more (+2 replies)
Recent reviews
Chose mate because of NAB goodies offer, get $30 discount for first 6 months, then $20 off after. Very easy sign up and Laurent had me all hooked up and running in 10 minutes. Very good service! Show details · 1
I rang Mates to change the settings on my router after having NBN fibre to the home installed. When i spoke to Cameron he was very patient and didn't give up until my internet was all set up properly. He was very knowledgeable and a great asset for Mates to have. Show reply
I rang Mate with a query about charges. Cameron was extremely patient and helpful. He was also very kind as I asked him to repeat the information. He is a very good operator at Mate and does a wonderful job of relating to customers. Show details · 1
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LAURENT WAS SUCH AN AMAZING AGENT! Literally helpful, and approachable. I felt this was the best service experience I’ve had and our call ended with satisfaction! Thank you for helping me Laurent, I truly hope Laurent gets promoted because I can truthfully say this is the best service I’ve ever experienced. Show reply
The connection has generally been very good, but I struck problems when I connected to A VPN. When changing some settings I really mucked it up, ending up with a very intermittent connection. Your Laurent steered me through it, very knowledgeable, and also unasked offered some suggestions to improve the set-up. Thanks very much! Show details · 1
Contacted mate, to transfer my Son's phone service out to his own account. Cameron made it a simple process, with the service being transferred over straight away with no hassles. Whilst on the phone I added an NBN FTTP connection to my new place I am moving into. Cameron smashed this out in no time and is ready to go when we move in. 500/50, $61/mth for the 1st 6mths then $86/mth is pretty d#mn good. Show details · 1
Outstanding customer service from Cameron. I’ve been with Mate for several years now and never had any issues. Cameron called to check in to see if I was happy with my internet. I was happy and took the opportunity to upgrade my modem… they must have read my mind… I had intended to call and request an upgrade this week. Show details · 1
Service is good not great. I am using a Netcomm nf20mesh router/modem and I am finding I need to restart it more frequently than I like (once every two weeks maybe), not much but annoying. I have a landline phone and Mate really didn't deliver for this so I gave up and went with Crazytel ... dirt cheap and it works well. Mate offered me a good price $70/mth to bring me back as a customer. Seems fair. Show details · 1
I had some issues connecting my internet with my new package, I spoke with Cameron on the phone, he was extremely helpful, very clear and his instructions were easy to follow. His help alone was 5 stars, however, due to the complications beginning from the moment I signed with mate, I believe the process should be easier Show details · 1
A couple of months ago I transferred to Mate after being tempted by the NAB credit card discount offer. What a mistake! Download speeds were always well below that advertised rate even during off peak times. After a few days we experienced a major outage that lasted about 8 hours. Today, just a few weeks later, we experienced another outage that… Read more
lasted over 6 hours. I had never experienced outages like this with my previous ISP (Launtel). Enough was enough. As soon as the service was back up again I churned to Superloop. The download speed immediately increased from an average of 450Mbps to 540Mbps. Same computer - same LAN. I suppose you get what you pay for but I wouldn't recommend Mate to anyone.
Hi Chris, thanks for taking the time to share this. We’re… Read more
I had some tech issues with my fibre connection. Cameron called me back and assisted me n troubleshoot. He was calm and did some step by step process to get me back up n running. Really happy with the service I received. I also have dealt many times with Brandon, he also is very helpful. Really great to have awesome team in Mate. Thank u all Show details · 1
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Hey William, thanks for the detailed feedback and we’re… Read more (+5 replies)