FRUSTRATED residents in an East Lothian village claim complaints about a fading phone network service are falling on deaf ears.

People living in Pencaitland say O2 is failing to address their concerns about the deterioration in service in their village.

They say the once-strong signal they relied on from the network has gone from a good service to nearly non-existent.

And they say attempts to find out what has changed are not being addressed by the company.

Now a petition calling on O2 to fix the problem or reimburse the customers has been lodged online.

Ralph Averbuch, who started the petition, said the issue was affecting many residents, adding: “A lot of people in Pencaitland work from home or have children who rely on internet connection for their studies.

“The situation is completely unacceptable.”

Residents claim problems with the O2 service only began a few months ago but they say attempts to get an answer from O2 about the issue have got them nowhere.

Mr Averbuch even revealed a response he received from the company after complaining about the service.

It stated: “I’ve attempted to contact you to discuss this today, but unfortunately, I’ve been unable to reach you.”

In the response, in which Mr Averbuch’s complaint was dismissed, it also revealed O2 could not guarantee indoor coverage and advised use of its TU Go service.

The TU Go service is an app available to pay-as-you-go and business customers, which allows them to access calls and texts via WiFi.

The petition calling on O2 to act states: “O2 has, until recently, provided reasonable mobile service in the EH34, EH35 area of East Lothian. It is one of two network providers which have historically provided reliable mobile coverage.

“However, over the last few months an increasingly vocal community has raised their frustrations over the lack of action from O2 in resolving poor network performance issues that have arisen.

“We demand that O2 either addresses these concerns or provides customers receiving poor service with full compensation and a no-penalty opportunity to move provider.”

Fellow O2 customer Lynn Donohoe says she became involved after losing her signal.

She said: “I’m paying for a contract that is not delivering text or phone call provision.”

While resident Charlotte McMillan added: “What was once a good service is suddenly now almost non-existent.”

And Gail Fraser said: “No credible explanation from O2, who reiterate they are ‘investigating’.”

O2 said plans to upgrade the mast at Pencaitland to both 3G and 4G at the end of November were underway.

A spokesperson said: “Our mast in Pencaitland is carrying network traffic. An engineer carried out a full test in and around the area on Tuesday to check the experience of our customers and we are expecting the results soon.”