Waiting for the phone to ring

Catherine Curtis and Ray Clements search for a cellphone signal. Photo / Malcolm Pullman

Residents of Kirikopuni area aren't troubled by phones that keep ringing, nor are they tied up on the internet - but they want to be.

Just off State Highway 14, they they have been without either phone or internet since the end of last month, and they're fed up.

They are the victims of strike action by workers for Telecom's network infrastructure division, Chorus, and its Australian-owned contractor, Visionstream. The telco engineers have been striking over attempts to change their employment status, from being field technicians for Chorus to individual owner-operator contractors for Visionstream. As a result work on the Kirikopuni fault has not been completed.

The 14 families feel vulnerable, isolated and concerned that someone will come to harm because they won't be able to call for help. They live in farm homesteads kilometres from each other, too far away to cry for help. And cellphones are near useless in the hilly farmland, unless you put on your gumboots, trek up a hill and wave the phone around looking for a signal.

"Is that a viable option when it's pouring with rain?" asked farmer Helen Rae. "No. When it's pitch dark? No."

In the meantime they are baulking at their Telecom bills because, no matter how unsatisfactory, they have to use those cellphones when they can.

Nina Walker has been without her landline since August 28. She looked at her phone bill on Friday in shock before saying: "I am really pissed off, I can't believe it."

The bill for $370 is way above her usual amount, all because she has been using her cellphone to try to get in touch with her daughter Imogen in Auckland. Imogen, 23, has been in North Shore Hospital because of complications with her pregnancy.

Not having regular contact with Imogen has put pressure on Walker. "She [Imogen] had quite a lot of pain and was really unwell and she can't ring me," Walker said. "She was so stressed because she wanted to talk to me and she couldn't."

Walker's 12-year-old daughter Holly is worried that if anything happens to her mother she will have to run 3km to the nearest working phone.

Walker and the rest of the residents said they would feel less annoyed if they knew what had happened to their phones, such as a storm damaging the line, but they have no idea.

"We can cope for a couple of days without a phone, but three weeks is a joke," Walker said.

Other locals worry for their children trying to study for NCEA exams without the internet.

Neighbour David McCarthy hasn't had the use of his home phone since August 30.

He has been able to divert calls to his mobile phone - provided he is on high enough ground to receive the signal.

Now he has a $229 Telecom bill, of which $142 is for mobile phone calls he wouldn't normally make. "I've had a total gutsful of it," he said.

McCarthy has asked Telecom for a discount: "How much, I don't know."

He and his wife Nicki are also worried they will not be contactable if anything happens to their two sons, Bill and Daniel, both boarding at Sacred Heart in Auckland.

Ray Clements has been farming in the region for 44 years and has never known a situation like it.

He recounted numerous farming accidents, such as the time he had to call an ambulance for a colleague whose spleen split after a bulldozer fell on top of him. "If I hadn't been able to have the phone to get him help he was as good as dead."

And it's not just the lack of phone contact that's making life difficult. The convenience of internet banking has been replaced with an 80km round trip into town and back.

Carol and Ray Cameron are lucky to still have their phone on, and they have been generous in letting friends use it.

But Carol described the situation as "third world".

"We're pretty resilient, but we like our communications," she said. "Telecom make a profit every year - why can't they just leave things alone?"

Some people have been offered a refund on their line rental but that has not softened the blow.

Telecom spokesman Ian Bonnar said the affected customers should not be charged for any calls diverted to their mobiles, and they could ask for a "contribution" to the cost of their outgoing calls.

The telecommunications engineers have been holding industrial action for several weeks.

Chorus spokesman Robin Kelly said work to fix the line had been going on for four days but had been delayed because of "intimidation" including verbal abuse from striking workers.

But the workers' union, the EPMU, denied there had been any trouble.

EPMU national secretary Andrew Little said there were some pickets around the phone exchange in Whangarei but they had not been causing trouble, nor had they come to the attention of the police.

"I think this is Chorus or Telecom making excuses. They've antagonised the workforce up there."