Telstra outages for residents in Wandella and Yowrie could have life-threatening consequences for some in the region.
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Problems with the telecommunication service’s tower on Peak Alone have left customers in the area without reception for up to four days at a time, according to reports.
One resident who relies on a connection getting through is Christa Rehwinkel of Wandella, who in 2015 suffered an aortic dissection – a serious condition involving a tear in the wall of the major artery carrying blood out of the heart – following heart surgery.
As a result, she needs to have a VitalCall machine and wears a pendant with a button she can push if she requires an ambulance, but the technology relies on 3G connection through the Peak Alone tower.
“My life depends on it,” she said. “When your VitalCall machine has no service for four days solid it’s a bit disconcerting.”
She even has a direct view of the tower from her house, which is only about 17km away.
“I think lives are actually at risk, not only mine. You could have an issue or a farm accident,” she said.
“The biggest concern for the whole community is we’re in a valley surrounded by a lot of forest and we wouldn’t be able to get fire alerts.
“It’s also become very isolating. I hadn’t been able to contact people for four to five days.”
On Wednesday, January 16, almost 50 people from the community – including a number of people with medical conditions – held a meeting to discuss their concerns over the outages and air their frustrations with Telstra over not being informed what the reasons were for the lack of reception.
Brian and Shirleyanne Myers of Wandella, who attended the meeting, said the aim was to organise another meeting with a representative of the telecommunication company.
“There’s such a human story that goes with the angst of not getting good communication, and I think that human story doesn’t get through to a corporation like Telstra,” Ms Myers said.
Mr Myers said there were a number of people in the region running businesses that were getting into difficulties from the poor reception, including himself.
“Your coverage can drop out in the middle of making a financial transaction. You can’t do your banking, we have to go into Cobargo to do that,” he said.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Telstra said they were aware of the issues with reception in the region.
“We are aware of the issues affecting the performance of the Peak Alone tower, at this point in time we are unable to determine the exact cause of the issues, as they are still under investigation,” they said.
“We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience and can assure them we are working as quickly as possible to restore services.”