More than 50 households near Murchison in the Tasman District have been without cell phone reception or internet for more than a week.
Felix Borenstein, who runs a luxury fly fishing lodge in Owen Valley, said the internet and cell phone outage left them without important emergency communication network. Photo: RNZ/Tracy Neal
Vodafone said the area lost connection after lightning damaged a cell phone tower on Mount Murchison.
Felix Borenstein, who runs a luxury fly fishing lodge in Owen Valley, said it was causing major problems for businesses and farms in the area.
It also left them without an important emergency communication network.
He said the outage happened in a lightning storm eight days ago, and that the catchment north of Murchison, including the Tutaki and Mangles Valleys, were all affected.
Mr Borenstein said he was forced to drive 20km daily to check his email.
"It's not just my cellphone. We're with Farmside, which does wireless rural broadband, which is supplied by Vodafone.
"We have no cell reception and no internet and last time I checked I thought we lived in a first world country."
There was no Spark coverage at all in the area, Mr Borenstein said.
Another Owen Valley resident, who declined to be named, was unable to do any banking or file her GST returns, which were due today.
She had tried without success to find out when the problem would be fixed.
"Vodafone ... just keep saying the call's been logged. That's about all."
Vodafone told RNZ that repairs were scheduled for tomorrow if the weather was fine.
"For health and safety reasons, we need a day of clear weather to allow workers to climb the tower and allow a helicopter to fly in and out of the area to assist," a company spokesperson said.
