Residents in the district whose mobile carriers use the equipment, including Optus, Internode and others, have experienced poor reception over the last four weeks.

One Ararat resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said she received no notice that her service would be disrupted, and the inconsistent reception led to her missing out on work shifts. 

"People send messages from work to see if you can work and I don't get them for two or three days, because they just don't come through," she said.

"It's pretty hard to stay in touch with everyone when you've got interrupted service." 

The resident said she received no notice that her service would be disrupted, and phoned Optus to find out what was going on.

"The first call (I made) is 'no, we've had no reports of problems in the area'," she said.

"When you ring back again it's 'oh yeah, we've had a few reports and we're just having problems with the tower.'"

The service disruption had impacted other areas of her life too.

"I do internet banking and that's been more difficult because I like to pay my bills on time, and that's difficult when you don't have internet access," she said.

The resident said that she did receive a credit from Optus for $17, but there was no explanation attached to it. 

An Optus spokeswoman said the repairs had now been completed.

"Recently, some Optus customers in Ararat may have been experiencing disruptions to their mobile services due to equipment issues," she said.

"Optus' technicians have identified the faults and replaced the parts responsible for the disruption.

"Optus confirms all services have now been fully restored. Optus considers compensation claims on a case by case basis.

"Customers seeking compensation should ring the customer support line on 133 937."

 The spokeswoman said Optus apologised to customers for the inconvenience. 

"We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience experienced and thank them for their patience while services are being restored," she said.

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