7:50am on Monday, March 7...for more than 20 Tapitallee locals that was the day their ADSL internet and home phone service stopped working.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Almost a month later the affected residents find themselves in the same position wondering what to do next?
READ MORE:
The poor weather is at the root of the problem with the area experiencing a 'Fibre to the Node' outage.
An issue that is only amplified by the area's poor mobile phone coverage, leaving many homes technologically blacked out.
Tapitallee resident John Behrendt said he's tried to contact Telstra multiple times to get a realistic timeframe on when service could be restored, but even after these calls, he remains just as uncertain.
"You'd think they'd know their product, they say 'can you use your smart modem?" I don't have a smart modem," he said.
"I told them that the 4G signal is so poor, that I struggle for phone reception as it is, so I can't hotspot anything."
At the moment Mr Behrendt is doing whatever he can on his phone with the little fluctuating signal that he can get.
Telstra did offer him a $30 refund and extra data, however as the signal is so poor, he says there is little these benefits will actually do, and it's at the point he feels as if he's paying for nothing.
Telstra's Regional General Manager for NSW Chris Taylor said "while the area in general has good 4G mobile service, there are a number of factors that could be influencing the mobile coverage."
"This could include the type of device being used, the distance from a tower, terrain, tall trees or built infrastructure," he said.
Mr Taylor said the area is serviced by their base station at Browns Mountain, which is expected to be upgraded later this year which should improve the area's overall capacity and customer experience.
He said there is currently no short term fix to mobile coverage in the area but said when NBN service is restored to the area he encourages residents to use a Wi-Fi network to make and receive mobile calls.
While this is helpful, it still doesn't provide an answer to the question of when the area's internet connectivity will resurface.
Mr Behrendt was outside mowing when a four-wheel drive pulled up and an NBN employee got out with a measuring wheel.
"The guy said they were measuring up because they are going to put an optical fiber cable in six to eight months and that we'd be sent a letter if we want to hook up to it," he said.
"I thought six to eight months!...that's all well and good but what about now?
"He said the old system was completely damaged by water and it's got in all the joints, and so I asked when that was going to be fixed and he said he didn't have any idea," Mr Behrendt said.
While Mr Behrendt said he knows that this isn't priority number one with all the flood affected parts of the state, he feels the lack of communication is alarming.
"You can't completely deplete an area, if 20 houses are out you'd think that would get some attention or someone would at least ring to tell us what's next," he said.
Everytime he has managed to get through on the phone he's been told the same thing "that they'll run some tests on his modem", but with 20 different properties out Mr Behrendt remains flabbergasted that more isn't being done as it "obviously" isn't an isolated problem with his property.
With the timeframe up in the air, there is a question as to whether or not Telstra could provide smart modems to the affected houses or some form of an external aerial or phone booster to help improve the coverage.
Until some form of repair comes to the area, Mr Behrendt said residents will continue to be paying for services such as Netflix that they can't even use.