A north-east couple claim they have been left “high and dry” by an internet service provider, and have been unable to make phone calls or go online for months.
John and Hilary Gaunt said they first inquired about having a phone line and wireless internet connection installed at their Crathes home at the start of last year.
The couple built the property from scratch and have been residing there since December.
But, despite repeated calls to BT and engineer visits from BT and Openreach, they are still without a phone line or internet connection.
Last night, Mr Grant said they still did not know when the situation would be resolved.
He added: “Trying to live a reasonably modern life is difficult without an internet connection – banking is difficult, we still have some building work to arrange, and my wife is a volunteer swim coach who has to organise classes.
“So now we’ve been left high and dry, to be honest.
In fact, in the time it’s taken BT to not get us a connection, we have built the house.”
The 62-year-old, who was first visited by engineers in January of last year, was initially told that it would take three months to carry out the work because a road had to be closed.
The former paper mill manager claims this work was delayed due to weather conditions, but he was then told it was not necessary.
However, when the workers attempted to add their line to a nearby exchange, they realised the connection port belonged to someone else.
Now, the Gaunts have been faced with another hurdle, because they need permission to allow engineers to plug their phone line into a connection port in a neighbour’s garden.
According to Mr Gaunt, BT/Openreach initially informed him they had secured this permission, but have since revealed this is not the case.
The retired couple have been forced to spend about £1,000 on equipment and bills to help them go online via the 3G network.
Mr Gaunt said: “Clearly, in their planning process, there’s something fundamentally flawed if they are asking for roads to be closed when they don’t need to be, and giving me connections that belong to someone else.”
A spokesman for BT said: “We’ve encountered a number of problems including a local cable having no spare capacity which means we have to run in a new cable.
“Unfortunately, there are blockages in the ducts which need to be cleared.
“Our engineers made good progress today and we are confident we will enable service next week.”
