FEDERAL Member for Calare Andrew Gee says he has taken Limekilns residents’ phone frustrations straight to the top after they lost their line again this week.
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Limekilns’ Greg Lee contacted the Advocate on Wednesday to report that the phone line had dropped out “until further notice” in the district north of Bathurst after another electricity outage.
It followed Limekilns resident Deborah Oude Avenhuis going public with her frustrations in mid-December after she lost her home phone line for the fourth time in six weeks.
Ms Oude Avenhuis said the home phone lines in the area were lost each time there was a power outage and it would then take days for the lines to start working again.
She said the problem was with the local exchange and it was compounded by the fact there was little or no mobile coverage in the area.
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MP Mr Gee said he had now taken the problem at Limekilns to Telstra’s CEO Andy Penn.
“This issue is obviously causing affected residents a huge amount of concern, inconvenience and frustration,” Mr Gee said.
“Before Christmas my office raised the matter with Telstra, who said they were aware of the problem, so I’m very disappointed that this is still going on.
“In view of the continuing issues, I’ve now raised it with Telstra’s chief executive officer, Andy Penn, and asked him to investigate and resolve the problem as a matter of urgency.
“I’ve also suggested that Telstra takes steps to ensure the problem doesn’t reoccur.
“Hopefully this will get things cracking and I’ll keep the community updated on the response from Telstra.”
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Limekilns’ Mr Lee told the Advocate that he had complained to the telecommunications industry ombudsman about the phone problems at Limekilns “without any success”.
“It seems that Telstra can ignore the maintenance of rural exchanges without any penalty,” he said.
“Their excuses don't mean anything because the exchange has worked fine for many years; obviously it can be fixed.”
The Advocate contacted Telstra last month about the problems at Limekilns and was told the telephone exchange there needs power to run.
The Advocate was told there are battery backups in place but they are only short-term and if a site is left without power it then requires technicians to go out and replace hardware.
