Residents of a Perthshire town are being forced to travel miles from home to use their mobile phones.
A telecommunications black hole has been left in Auchterarder after mobile phone giant Vodafone was ordered to remove the mast serving the area.
The company said it was served a notice to quit by the owner of the land at Rossie Hill, where the mast was sited, and are currently trying to find an alternative site.
The situation has left the area without a signal for two weeks and angry residents claim they are being forced to travel as far as Gleneagles, three miles away, before they can make a call.
Businesses in the area are also being affected with customers unable to reach those using Vodafone mobiles.
Ann Easton, who runs gardening company Garden Gofers with husband Bob, said that if the situation continued it could cost the business money.
The 56-year-old, who has been a Vodafone customer for 15 years, said she was faced with paying a penalty to the company to be released from her contract.
She said: “It’s an absolute nightmare. Because we work outdoors we depend on the mobiles for customers to contact us.
“It’s very, very frustrating because we can’t get a definitive answer from Vodafone in respect of when it’s going to be resolved and they are not keen to let anyone out of their contract.
“So we’ve got to sit it out or pay the penalty which could be hundreds of pounds. If it’s ongoing it will certainly lose us business.
“This is our quieter time but come March the phone is very busy with possible new inquiries or existing customers wanting extra work done for the start of the season.”
Murdo Fraser MSP said the phone company had to ensure it provided coverage to paying customers.
A Vodafone spokeswoman said residents should not expect constant coverage.
She said: “The issue we have is that we were issued with a notice to quit by the owner of the land where our mast was located and our engineers are trying find a way round the loss of this site.
“We cannot guarantee that the service is available 24 hours a day as so many things can affect mobile phone coverage and many of them like this one are beyond our control.
“Each mast covers a limited area perhaps as little as a mile in radius so whilst customers will have experienced loss of service in this location, all our services are still available when a customer moves into the coverage footprint of another mast.”