THE owners of the Spring Ridge hotel have been watching business walk out the door for the last eight days with internet connection apparently disrupted following a black-out.
A storm hit the small town last Wednesday, owner Niccole Archer said, and while the power came back about six hours later, the hotel remained without internet.
Fairfax Media understands Telstra was working with the hotel on Thursday morning to reinstate its internet access.
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It’s believed there was data making its way to the hotel, but there was an issue accessing the service.
However, the pub has been without an ATM for eight days.
The owner said employees had been "hot-spotting" the EFTPOS machine to their mobiles when there had been sufficient phone service.
Ms Archer said it highlighted the "absurd" telecommunications situation in the village.
"The mobile phone service is horrendous anyway," she said.
"If you go 5km out of town, you get full bars on 4G, meanwhile in town you're scratching to get two bars of 3G.
"If I go to the back of the pub, there's no service."
While the week without internet has been frustrating, Ms Archer said the whole system needed to be upgraded to stop the town from becoming "virtually forcibly isolated".
"The techs have been out everyday working on it and they can escalate it," she said.
"But really the whole system needs an upgrade, it's just so unreliable.
"It's just absurd, we 're not that remote a town."
New England MP Barnaby Joyce recently announced three new mobile base stations at Manilla, Barraba and Fossickers Way had been completed by Vodafone.
Jacob McArthur
Jacob McArthur is opinions editor for The Canberra Times and Australian Community Media. As part of the Canberra Times' production team, he helps the people of Canberra and beyond get the stories they need, when they need them across a range of platforms, while helping maintain a high editorial standard. Before moving to Canberra in 2020, he started with Australian Community Media in 2015 as a journalist for The Northern Daily Leader in Tamworth where he kept a close eye on Tamworth Regional Council. Jacob was also the co-host of ACM's Water Pressure podcast where he and Jamieson Murphy took a deep dive on issues and key decisions arising during one of the region's worst droughts on record.
Jacob McArthur is opinions editor for The Canberra Times and Australian Community Media. As part of the Canberra Times' production team, he helps the people of Canberra and beyond get the stories they need, when they need them across a range of platforms, while helping maintain a high editorial standard. Before moving to Canberra in 2020, he started with Australian Community Media in 2015 as a journalist for The Northern Daily Leader in Tamworth where he kept a close eye on Tamworth Regional Council. Jacob was also the co-host of ACM's Water Pressure podcast where he and Jamieson Murphy took a deep dive on issues and key decisions arising during one of the region's worst droughts on record.
