You are not alone, with residents and business owners and operators complaining about poor or intermittent internet connections and telephone connection problems since last Friday.

A Telstra spokesperson said a ‘technical fault’ had now been fixed and services should have returned to normal.

It appears an outage on the Telstra Wireless 3G network affected services in the 2446, 2445, 2443 and 2441 postcodes leaving residents and businesses in parts of Wauchope, King Creek, Laurieton, North Haven, Lakewood, Telegraph Point, Brombin, Pappinbarra and Rollands Plains unable to use their mobile phones or go online.

Meredith Ryan from FAWNA lives in Brombin and says it’s affecting the wildlife charity.

“It’s just not good enough in a supposedly progressive, tech-savvy country that people in relatively close proximity to a major centre are subjected to Third World communications,” she said. 

“This 3G connectivity problem for people more than five kms from the Telstra tower on the eastern end of Bago mountain has been manifesting since December 2016.”

Affected people were told months ago that the delay in fixing it was due to the Queensland cyclone taking up all technical staff capabilities.

The FAWNA representative said a Telstra Country Wide spokesperson on Wednesday contacted her landline to say that a technician would install a replacement part on the Bago tower.

Ms Ryan has also contacted Lyne MP Dr David Gillespie for help. 

Heather Smith from Pappinbarra said she and her husband have no 3G mobile service.  They can only get reception when they head into Wauchope and get 4G service.

The couple run their businesses from home and are not able to take or make calls, or send or receive text messages.

“Many people out here have not had landlines working properly since the fires,” she said.

“In our case, we previously did not have a landline, and when we applied to get one after the fires we were advised that Telstra were not providing any new landline services.  Fortunately we are on Satellite internet and are able to access the internet.” 

The Camden Haven area has also been affected by a telecommunications malfunction.

The issue left many Telstra customers either with intermittent internet access or phone problems.

At the Camden Haven Courier office in Laurieton, the telephone system failed on many levels. You could ring out and receive a dial tone but, once connected, the other party could not hear you.

A post on the Courier’s Facebook page revealed the extent of the issue.

As one local person explained, the Camden Haven has many older residents who contact friends daily – as part of a telephone tree system – and any disruption to telephone services can cause some concerns.

A Telstra spokesperson acknowledged there were interruptions to services.

“We apologise to our customers for the interruption they may have experienced to their landline and ADSL services caused by a technical fault,” the spokesperson said.

“Services were restored (on Tuesday afternoon) and we thank our customers for their patience.

“We encourage any customers experiencing any ongoing issues to report a fault on 132 200.”

The Courier also contacted Optus for comment.

NBN Co says there were no issues with the NBN network in the area, given that it is not yet live and still under construction.