RESIDENTS in Mitcheldean have hit out at mobile phone network EE having been without mobile phone signal for almost a month.

EE, who claim to provide mobile phone coverage in 98 per cent of the country, have reportedly been having problems with a mast located atop the former Farmplan building in the Mitcheldean Enterprise Work Shops area.

But scores of customers have been left short-changed and short of answers as they pay for a service they can’t use.

“I’ve been told different timescales from EE technical support,” said Leanne Fisher.

“I’ve been told the problem is fixed when it clearly isn’t. Now they’re not able to give me a date of when work will be complete.

“Apparently the mast ’just over from the church’ had power reduced as part of an improvement programme but there are other issues that they’re trying to address.”

Paul Sumners said he had a number of ’broken promises’ from EE.

“I’ve had five broken, it’ll be fixed by promises. The last one being yesterday (Sunday August 20).”

He was told engineers were working on the issue twice as well as being told the issue was fixed and will take three days for the service to get up to speed.

Mr Sumners was also told that EE representatives were unable to find the problem on their system.

Kevin Peck, whose wife is expecting a child, expressed frustration that he cannot contact his partner and is having to get an ’unecessary’ phone line installed in order to talk to his wife.

“My wife’s pregnant and nearly due, how’s she contacting me when I’m at work or out? We’re both on EE.”

Maxine Brookes was told by EE that there was no timeframe on the problem being fixed.

“I’ve rang them and they said they’ll compensate people as soon as it’s fixed but have no idea as to when it’ll be fixed as there are 12 masts in Mitcheldean and all 12 of them are down,” she said.

“I’m paying £60 a month for nothing at the moment.”

EE failed to respond to a number of requests for a comment by The Forester.

Customers who use rival network Three have also reported problems, but Three said they were ’unable to see an issue’ on their system when contacted by The Forester.