Moretonhampstead residents can finally use their mobile phones again after a month-long outage affecting the local EE mast.
Mobile signal from the local EE mast at the ‘Blue Barn’ went down on December 7 due to a loss in electricity supply. Residents were told on December 27 that there would be no signal until the new year as engineers had struggled to access the site with a cherry picker.
Local newsagent, Larry Kuiper, was astounded that the repairs took so long. ‘I cannot believe, in this day and age, it could not be fixed,’ he said.
BT Group, which owns the EE brand, said repairs had been carried out last week to restore service. ‘We’re sorry for the disruption to mobile signal affecting customers in Moretonhampstead and surrounding areas, which was caused by adverse weather conditions,’ a BT Group spokesperson said. ‘Service has now been restored and we will continue to monitor performance over the coming days,’ the spokesperson added.
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Residents had been told that the delay to repairs was due to engineers struggling to access the site with a cherry picker due to hay bales being in the way, but locals argued that the hay had been moved weeks ago to enable workers to get to the mast.
BT Group said it was, in fact, a limited availability of the climbing equipment they needed to complete the fix over the festive period that meant it had taken longer to get things working again.
While the affected mast provides coverage for the north-eastern part of Dartmoor National Park, some users in the affected area were able to pick up signal via overlapping coverage from other EE masts in the area.
Users needing to make emergency calls on 999 would have been able to use other available mobile networks.