Michael Warren

Journalist

Frustrated Wangetti residents remain without reliable phone coverage more than a week after a heavy storm cut services to the small village just north of Cairns.

Fed up residents have taken the matter into their own hands with one reaching out and making a direct complaint about the matter with the telecommunications ombudsman.

“After lightning struck the Telstra tower last Tuesday November 29 the little hamlet of Wangetti behind Palm Cove and Port Douglas has (had) no service," the resident, who, Newsport has kept anonymous, wrote.

“Most ppl (sic) only have mobile phones, not landlines, however the nearby business Hartley's Crocodile Adventures had very poor landline phone connection as well.

“We are unable to contact emergency services if we need assistance.

"There are a number of vulnerable people in our community with health issues.

“I have had very limited information provided by the Telstra call centre. It was supposed to be fixed last Thursday.”

Since this time Newsport has received other emails from local residents demanding answers.

Over the past 24 hours Newsport has reached out to Telstra for comment about the matter.

In an email to Telstra sent Wednesday morning, December 7 just after 10am Newsport requested answers to the following questions;

• Does Telstra know about this ongoing outage?
• What is Telstra doing about this outage?
• When will this outage be fixed?

A short time ago a Telstra representative responded to our enquiries.

"An issue with some equipment on our local mobile base station which may have been caused by the recent storms, is disrupting 3G and 4G services in Wangetti," Telstra Regional General Manager Rachel Cliffe expressed to Newsport.

"Landline and nbn services are not affected.

"Special hardware has been shipped in to fix the issue and we expect to have everything back online soon.

"We know it's been a long wait and we thank everyone for their patience.

"Residents can improve their mobile coverage by using their nbn connection to access Wi-Fi calling.

"This works even during a mobile outage and is a free setting on most popular mobile phones, which allows your mobile to use a Wi-Fi network to make and take mobile calls."

UPDATED - Friday, December 9, 10.15am ------------------------

"A Telstra technician was onsite at Wangetti for most of yesterday (Dec 8) and has unfortunately found further storm damage to our local mobile base station," Telstra Regional General Manager Rachel Cliffe told Newsport.

"There is overlapping coverage from other nearby Telstra mobile sites but we know coverage isn't great in parts at the moment. NBN services are not affected.

"Additional equipment is coming as a matter of urgency and we're sorry for the extra wait. We know how important connectivity is for regional communities and we are working to get everything back online as quickly as possible.

"Residents can improve their mobile coverage by using their NBN connection to access Wi-Fi calling.

"This works even during a mobile outage and is a free setting on most popular mobile phones, which allows your mobile to use a Wi-Fi network to make and take mobile calls."