POOR mobile phone service has resulted in people missing important calls and hanging out of windows to phone ambulances, says a Verwood resident. 

People living in the town have reported ‘months’ of network issues related to the provider O2.

One 72-year-old resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said “you cannot get mobile phone signal unless you leave Verwood”.

She told the Daily Echo: “I am on O2 and I can’t begin to explain how bad it is. There’s plenty of people in Verwood who are angry about it.

“We cannot receive voicemail calls, we cannot make outgoing calls, we cannot receive or send text messages. I’ve missed hospital calls and doctors calls because of it. It’s just awful.

“As an example – someone I know who lives here is poorly. The other day, he had to hang out of his window with his phone and try and get enough signal so he could call an ambulance.”

The resident claims the network issues have been going on since June of this year, and his reportedly been told by O2 it is due to “upgrades taking place in the area”.

She said that many residents share the view the upgrades should’ve been completed by now.

She added: “No one from O2 seems interested.

“We’ve had messages from them saying it’s going to take a bit longer until its fixed, but it just goes on and on, and then we hear nothing else.

“It’s a problem with O2, but I’ve heard that other companies like Talk Talk and Vodafone have also been affected.”

The Daily Echo approached O2 with the residents’ concerns, and put forward a number of questions, including what the cause of the network issue was, and how long it is expected to continue for.

A spokesperson for the company responded: “We apologise to customers in the Verwood area who may be experiencing intermittent issues with their services.

“Our infrastructure partner, Vodafone, is aware of the network issues and is working hard to restore services as soon as possible."