Mendlesham business on loss from being without phone signal

Rob Dorling, of Dorling Transport, was unable to carry out day-to-day duties properly after the villages of Mendlesham and Debenham were left to feel the effects of problems with a nearby mast. 

Network provider O2 said the area was reconnected on Monday evening. 

The haulage firm boss said the lack of phone signal impacted his business (Image: Rob Dorling) "If I am not driving a truck myself, I will be working from home in Mendlesham," said the haulage firm. 

"Endless people said to me 'I was trying to get hold of you and I can't'. I have got a lot of customers who call me directly, so it is hard to quantify how many calls I have missed. 

"It has made it very hard for the last week or so. It is hard to quantify what we made last week." 

Mr Dorling added it was not just the financial aspect which hit the company, but also the "inconvenience" of the day-to-day running of the business. 

The villages of Debenham and Mendlesham were left without phone signal for a week (Image: Charlotte Bond) The tracking systems in the trucks is run off a sim card and mobile data, meaning they struggled to obtain that data. 

While he was without phone signal, Mr Dorling had to drive Finningham five miles away in order to get in contact with a tyre fitter.  

Another instance saw a gate at a yard he parks in having to be left open due to it relying on phone signal.

A spokesperson for O2 said: "We apologise to customers in the Mendlesham area who may have been experiencing intermittent issues with their service.

"Following the replacement of an electricity meter, our engineers worked quickly to access the site and restore service levels to normal.”

The issue also affected customers on other networks such as Vodafone.