Elderly woman left without landline for a month

A 79-year-old woman said she felt "stranded" after being left without a landline telephone for a month due to a fault.

Linda, who did not want the BBC to use her surname, lives in north Ipswich and has not been able to use her telephone despite making numerous complaints to her provider since 10 March.

She said friends and family members had been worried when they initially could not get through and she had also received a letter explaining her charges were being increased despite the issue.

A spokesperson for phone company Openreach said the fault had been caused by water entering a cable and efforts to fix it had proved challenging, but workers were on site.

Linda has lived in her property for 60 years with her 80-year-old husband Terry.

After noticing the fault while trying to ring her daughter, Linda made use of her pay-as-you-go mobile to ring a nearby friend who similarly had no landline service.

Linda said she had been told by her provider that 45 people were affected by the issue, while one of her older neighbours, who did not want to be named, told the BBC their provider had told them there were 300 households affected.

"We've constantly been ringing BT [owner of Openreach], almost to the point I think they're fed up from hearing from us," Linda said.

"But we can't get through to Openreach who are our people that are supposed to put it right."

On 12 March, Linda and Terry celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary, but due to the issue could not speak to any friends or relatives.

"They all got worried because I wasn't ringing them back... a lot of them don't have my mobile... I've only got a pay-as-you-go and I very rarely give that number out."

Linda also missed getting a doctor's appointment this week as when she rang up, she was placed at number 30 in the telephone queue and she could not afford to stay on the line on her pay as you go mobile.

"The biggest thing is they sent me a letter the other day with a line rental increase, when I haven't got a phone," Linda added.

"It's salt in the wound, I couldn't believe it... they're still taking our money and we haven't even got a phone."

A spokesperson for Openreach said about 21 properties were without service and it was "really sorry" for disruption caused.

"The fault was caused by water getting into one of our cables in a deep underground chamber," they explained.

"Because the space is very confined and sits well below ground level, we had to bring in specialist partners so work could be carried out safely, including the use of breathing apparatus.

"When we first tried to access the chamber it was heavily flooded. Large volumes of water had to be pumped out, but it continued to refill, which meant we had to pause and reschedule the work while we put the right safety measures and equipment in place."

They added that the repair that involved "complex jointing work" and it would be completed in the coming days.

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