Andy Wells and his family live on the hills just south of Clinton. On a good day the view seems to go forever.
But come rain or shine, cellphone coverage is poor. With a medically compromised 6-year-old, having a reliable phoneline is vital.
Mr Wells, a sheep and beef farmer, said his cellphone constantly cutting out was making life harder than it should be.
"It happens all the time.
"We used to have reception all round our house.
"Now we have to stand in the corner of a kitchen, lean out a window and hope we might be able to get a call."
Calls would just cut out for no apparent reason.
"I have been on the phone to the helicopters to get them here and that goes all right because it goes through the satellite, I think.
"But the paramedics get here and need to ring Dunedin Hospital and they cannot get through."
His son Harry suffers from epilepsy.
Mr Wells said he needed to be able to contact emergency services should Harry need medical help.
The issue had been going on for the past 18 months.
He had complained to Spark, but the company did not show much interest.
The coverage from other providers was not great in the area and Spark used to be good.
"We are right on the main highway so we should be able to get good reception."
Fraser Leslie, who lives in Clinton and runs a cultivation contracting business, said calls were constantly dropping out.
"Someone will ring me, I will answer it and it will cut out immediately. It is bloody frustrating."
A lot of people were being impacted by the calls cutting out in the area and further afield and Spark offered no help.
"It is getting worse, not better. It has been going on for months and months."
Federated Farmers Otago president Luke Kane said he had noticed there appeared to be more black spots for coverage when travelling.
When going between Gore and the family farm in Waikoikoi there appeared to be more areas with no coverage than there used to be, though he had not heard of phones cutting out.
"Phones these days are a very important piece of tech. You can’t really run a business without it.
"From animal monitoring, to collecting data — you are working on it every day."
A Spark spokesman said there had been no changes to any of its sites in the Clinton area, so customers should not have noticed any difference in their experience recently.
The nearest site serving Clinton experienced high levels of activity.
To accommodate the growing demand, it was scheduled for an upgrade in the next 12 months.
