Mobile service woes in East Bendigo

Several of those who worked and lived in the area today received texts advising the telecommunications company was upgrading its mobile network around Epsom.

The text advised work would take place in the five days from last Wednesday.

A number of businesses were still experiencing issues with their mobile service and internet today.

Premises in the vicinity of Powells Avenue and Piper Lane seemed to be among those most affected.

At least 50 per cent of in-house guests at Bendigo's All Seasons Resort Hotel are estimated to have complained about poor mobile reception since Thursday.

"The Telstra issue has been an issue," receptionist Anna King said.

She said mobile phone reception had been cutting in and out and people were complaining the service was patchy or unreliable.

Text messages had been delayed or had not sent.

"We've had a few very upset people," Ms King said.

"Anyone who's with Telstra has been mentioning it."

GAME Traffic and Contracting manager Kyle Parish said mobile phone calls had been dropping out and failing for the past week.

He said the company was first notified about the issue on Thursday.

"We have been getting messages from Telstra saying they are upgrading the network," Mr Parish said. "But it's been causing a lot of hassles.

"We haven't lost work but it's definitely made an impact. It's slowed business down."

BB Truss and Timber traffic manager David McCormick said his business has also been affected.

"The mobile phones have been working intermittently for at least two weeks," Mr McCormick said.

"It's difficult because the owner will try and call you and the service drops out.

"I'll be trying to call our drivers and the calls just don't get through."

He said the business owner contacted Telstra to see when the issue would be resolved.

He said Telstra denied there was any issue with mobile phone service in East Bendigo.

Mr McCormick said he first received a message from Telstra notifying him about service disruptions on Monday afternoon.

The text message said, "Telstra would be upgrading its mobile network around Epsom with work to take place over 5 days commencing 9/10/2019".

Ace Security Doors owner Mick Johnson said he contacted Telstra on Monday after weeks of phone calls dropping out and clients being unable to contact him.

"We have had issues for weeks," Mr Johnson said.

"It came to the last straw and I rang Telstra. They told me there's been some lines down but they couldn't say when it would be fixed.

"I just want to apologise to our customers who have been trying to call because it's been hard to get back to everyone."

Just Spas Bendigo's Richard Bartlett said technicians out on the road had last week experienced difficulties sending photographs, which they did as part of their work.

Meanwhile, Country Vets staff members had mobile phones saying 'no service' or 'SOS calls only'.

"We know there is never a perfect time to schedule upgrade work," Telstra regional general manager Steve Tinker said.

"We apologise for the interruption but once we're finished it will mean better services for our customers."

He said Telstra was getting on with some important planned upgrade work at one of its mobile sites in East Bendigo.

The first stage of work at the tower started last week and finished today.

Services were expected to return to normal from tonight into tomorrow.

A second stage of work was scheduled to start on Wednesday and finish by the weekend.

"There's overlapping coverage in this part of Bendigo so our customers will continue to get some mobile coverage from our nearby towers," Mr Tinker said.

Telstra was understood to have sent a general notification to customers in Bendigo about planned work.

A text message was understood to have been sent to customers depending on when they were connected to the affected base station.

"Your mobile service may be impacted at various times during this period," the text advised.

It directed people to the following link for information: tel.st/4GXmsg

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