Eppalock residents are demanding answers from local politicians and NBN Co about a nearby National Broadband Network tower, which has remained idle since early 2013.

The area is at the centre of an internet coverage “black hole” and residents have to rely on mobile and wireless plans, costing some hundreds of dollars extra per month.

While those living in Axedale and Axe Creek have access to fast speeds, hundreds of people in Eppalock and further south still struggle with out-of-date internet.

The NBN tower is in clear view from dozens of houses on Strathfieldsaye Road, further frustrating residents.

Eppalock resident Jarrod Clowes, who runs a technology and business consultancy business, said they had run out of patience.

“Due to a heap of blunders and circumstances, the residents of Eppalock are still reliant on flaky internet connections to run their businesses, educate their children and conduct the commerce that is now required in anyone’s life,” he said.

“Our requirements just to run our business and educate our children are highly deficient.”

Mr Clowes moved to the area from New South Wales in 2015 to pursue business opportunities, and saw the nearby NBN tower as ideal for his work.

But the wait has continued to drag on.

“Our business is in technology and business consultancy, that requires a great deal of interaction with clients we have over a large geographical area,” Mr Clowes said.

“We require online meeting and collaboration tools to do that.

“Further to that, it is a requirement for our Children as a part of their education to research and submit work online.”

Towers in Huntly and Goornong are have also sat idle since the planning tribunal knocked back a relay tower for Mount Camel in 2014. Since then, residents say they have been kept in the dark on progress.

Allan Barton works hard to keep his cleaning business ticking over, but there’s one thing he can’t control: slow download speeds.

The internet is so poor near his Eppalock house that he has to rent an office in Bendigo to run his business, costing more than $12,000 per year.

The sight of the idle NBN tower as he pulls out of Native Gully Crescent and onto Strathfieldsaye Road is a constant reminder of the three-and-a-half years of delays in making it operational.

Mr Barton said the speeds at his office are at least five to 10 times faster than at home.

“The tower was going up when we moved in here so I was looking forward to being able to run my business from home,” he said.

“But it hasn’t happened.”

When he’s not operating his cleaning business, Mr Barton is the only person in Australia making custom aircraft spinners – the component at the centre of the propeller.

More than 90 per cent of his sales are overseas, but the slow speeds in Eppalock make doing business tough.

“The communications are just so slow,” Mr Barton said.

“You want to be able to talk to people on Skype when doing these orders, but it just can’t be done here.”

The poor internet in the area is also a problem for Paul Viney, who moved to the area earlier this year.

He said he was promised the tower would be operational within months, so spending a little extra on mobile internet for a few months did not seem like a problem.

But he said the wait had started to drag on.

“At the moment, we pay about $200 a month for 25 gigabites of data, and that’s right on the limit of what we use,” Mr Viney said.

“In Bendigo, I would spend $80 a month for 500 gigabites, so obviously there’s a massive difference there.

“We were told by everybody the tower would be done by March.”

His partner, who works from home, spends an extra hour every night on work due to slow download speeds.

On the NBN roll out map, Eppalock is ringed by areas with access to fast internet. In August last year, the Bendigo Advertiser was told NBN Co was searching for a new location for the relay tower.

Huntly and Goornong face a similar telecommunications crisis, with their towers also standing idle due to the lack of a tower at Mount Camel.

During a live debate two weeks ago, the Labor and Liberal candidates for Bendigo answered questions on the NBN roll out.

Lisa Chesters promised to come up with a street-by-street statement on the NBN. Liberal candidate Megan Purcell said a Sky Muster satellite had recently provided 4000 extra homes with fast internet in the Bendigo region.

Eppalock residents are encouraging anyone with concerns about the lack of NBN to come to a meeting with Member for Bendigo Lisa Chesters at 2pm on Wednesday at the site of the idle tower near the intersection with Native Gully Crescent and Strathfieldsaye Road.