People living in or visiting Cobar and surrounding areas have been angered and frustrated after being 'put on hold' by a mobile telephone outage that lasted for over a week.

Text messages would not send, with customers receiving a 'waiting to connect' message, and people were unable to connect to the internet through the mobile broadband service.

In some areas of the town people were also unable to make or take voice calls, with mobile phones indicating they were 'out of service'.

The issue first emerged around 29 November and was finally resolved at around 5pm today (Tuesday 7 December).

Customers reported that they resorted to driving around the town to find a spot where their phones would work.

With hundreds of people from around the shire affected and a lack of updates on progress , the community became increasingly frustrated.

The company's Outage page did not have a date when the issue was going to be fixed, only that it was a 'hardware problem'.

Everyday operations and business transactions became increasingly difficult to manage.

"We have had a lot of issues connecting to the internet, and when we can connect the connection is very slow," General Manager of the Copper City Motel, Mr Karthik told the Western Plains App.

"This includes our EFTPOS Payments, which have been very slow to process.

"Our guests have also been unable to connect to the internet," he said.

"Fortunately, we have had some success with the local technician able to fix issues temporarily but it does not last long", said Mr Karthik.

Another local businessman who contacted the Western Plain App, said he been unable to process his payments for his customers for over five days.

As this business would normally pay their customers the next day, he said they have had been dealing with "lots of angry people".

Another local, who wished to remain anonymous, said "Telstra has been shocking since last Tuesday the internet on mobile and landline is horrendous, [and] always cuts in and out.

"I pay a lot of money for my phone bill and when I messaged them about it I was told it’s unplanned problem and they don’t know when it’ll be fixed.

"Over a week now and nothing done no apology or nothing.

"We also use Telstra [mobiles] for our on call phones at the mines, if there is an emergency and if the signal isn’t there, it can be dangerous if they can’t get a hold of us," they said.

When contacted on Wednesday 7 November, a Telstra spokesperson said: "The good news is Cobar came back online today. A hardware issue that was affecting mobile services in Cobar has been fixed.

"Landline and NBN services were not affected at any stage. We know it was a long wait and we thank everyone for their patience," the spokesperson said.

Telstra also advise that compensation for customers can be considered on a case by case basis.

It was also suggested that residents can also improve their mobile coverage by using their NBN connection to access Wi-Fi calling. This works even during a mobile outage and is a free setting on most popular mobile phones, which allows your mobile to use a Wi-Fi network to make and take mobile calls.

While the problem is now solved, locals have had to wait over a week for the issue to be fixed and for those with only mobile phones the week has been very frustrating.