At a peak time for visitors to the region during Easter, Halls Gap's mobile base station went down between Thursday afternoon to Saturday afternoon.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A hardware fault, affecting 3G and 4G services, limited communications to and from Halls Gap.
Quarry Restaurant owner Stephen Johnston said not only was his business impacted by the fault, but an emergency situation unfolded at his establishment.
"During Saturday lunch, one of our patrons needed the assistance of emergency services," he said.
"We called 000 from our landline as it was the only way communication could get through.
"Many businesses and residents no longer opt to have a landline still connected - in this situation it was lucky we still did."
As Mr Johnston attended to the patron in need, his wife Leigh Johnston stayed on the phone to emergency services.
"My wife has since told me the operator kept asking her to get onto a mobile phone so she could be nearer to the person requiring medical assistance," he said.
"She kept repeating 'we don't have mobile coverage' to the operator. I was running back and forth to the customer and my wife relaying information on what I could observe and what the patient and the operator was telling me.
"The situation could have ended in different circumstances. Ambulance officers arrived and treated the patient."
Telstra's acting regional general manager Marcus Swinburne acknowledged the hardware fault in Halls Gap.
"We attended to the fault as quickly as possible, but had to organise for new hardware to be rushed to Halls Gap to fix the problem," he said.
"I'm sorry for the disruption this caused during the busy Easter weekend."
Residents from Halls Gap contacted their federal MP Dan Tehan on Saturday.
"They had obvious concerns about the impact of the mobile tower being out and I took up their concerns with Telstra and fortunately Telstra was able to respond," Mr Tehan said.
"I'd like to thank the Halls Gap community for notifying me of the problem so the issue could be taken up directly with Telstra.
"It was so important given the visitor numbers over the Easter weekend to have access to reception - whether for local business or the general community.
"I was pleased to see Telstra act so quickly to resolve the issue."
Mr Johnston said given the number of visitors to the region over the long weekend having no mobile reception could be a turn off for repeat visitors.
"Hopefully those visitors understand it was a fault and we have good coverage for the most part of the region," he said.
"It was disappointing to see the time frame of no reception given it was a peak tourist time with many hikers and walkers through the mountains.
"There was a planned burn conducted on Thursday before Easter and Halls Gap was filled with smoke. With no mobile communication, it made for a very busy time to be more stressful when serious emergency situations arose.
"Along with no coverage people couldn't access the internet and find out what the situation was with the smoke. People were going into businesses seeking information, concerned for their safety with the possibility of a fire."
While you're with us, you can now receive updates straight to your inbox each Friday morning from the Stawell Times-News. To make sure you're up-to-date with all the news from across the Northern Grampians shire, sign up here.