‘Unacceptable’ loss of phone service
Safety concerns have been raised by Waimate residents left without mobile phone reception following the district’s heavy flooding last week.
Waimate Community Link and Heartlands Service coordinator Jakki Guilford said some people had been told they would have to wait up to a week for it to be fixed.
‘‘It’s ridiculous, it’s dangerous, these are people’s lifelines as people don’t use landlines anymore.
‘‘It’s a major and we’re due for more rubbish weather this week. It is worrying if people can’t get through.’’
Waimate resident Tracey Pene said her husband, a Vodafone customer, could not even make a 111 emergency call because there was no reception.
He had been told that it would be ‘‘a week, if not more’’ until reception was restored, which was ‘‘unacceptable’’.
He had had no signal since midday on Sunday. Pene said he had been told by Vodafone the tower was out due to the flooding .
Waimate business owner Tony Patterson said he had been given ’’very, very little information’’ by 2degrees.
He had been told it was transmitter problems and that service would be restored by 2.30pm on Monday, but 24 hours later he still had no reception.
‘‘It’s been a real nuisance for business when you can’t call or text people.’’
Another resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said he thought ‘‘every 2degrees customer should get a credit reimbursement as it is not fair for paying customers and for people that rely on a mobile phone, like myself’’.
Waimate District Council chief executive Stuart Duncan said no reports of the outages had been received by council, but ’’naturally’’ if council had reports then it would be followed up.
Sergeant Kevin Reynolds, of Waimate, said he knew nothing about issues but it was always concerning if people could not make 111 calls to Police or other emergency services.
A 2degrees spokeswoman apologised ‘‘to any of our customers in Waimate who are currently without mobile coverage’’.
‘‘As a result of the weather and a subsequent power outage our cell tower at Mt Studholme has been down since Sunday morning.’’
She said 2degrees had tried to get to the site on Sunday, and again on Monday, to deploy generators and restore service but it could not be reached due to difficult road access caused by snowdrifts.
An Alpine Energy spokeswoman said that there had been access issue reaching the tower over the last couple days as it was extremely dangerous.
Power was expected to be restored to the Mt Studholme tower by end of day Tuesday, she said.
Vodafone Head of Technology Operations Ian Hooker said due to power loss over the weekend the Vodafone mobile service was ‘‘temporarily lost to parts of the Waimate region’’ from 4.30 pm on Saturday to 11.15 am on Sunday with a generator being deployed to the site.
He said the generator would remain until power was restored. Customers still experiencing issues should contact Vodafone customer services.