The East London Coffee Company, based in Gonubie, has been without its Telkom landline for 16 days.
Owner Alan Hawkins said it was hurting his small business badly.
“It is still out,” said Hawkins yesterday, adding he had tried several ways to get hold of Telkom to report the problem, including through their phone lines, e-mail, website and social media.
He said his administrative staff had been calling Telkom every day, twice a day, since last Monday.
He added that when they did get through to someone they were told the telecommunications provider was busy and that they should use the Telkom website instead.
This effort to report the problem also met with little success until 5pm on Tuesday, when Hawkins got a call from Telkom to say they were working on the problem.
TheDaily Dispatch sent questions to Telkom inquiring about the delay in addressing the report on Tuesday and received a response yesterday.
They said the problem had been identified as “a faulty underground cable and that a technician had been assigned to the problem in order to monitor and resolve it”.
“This is having a huge affect on trade,” said Hawkins, who explained he was getting many Facebook messages from clients saying they had tried to phone The East London Coffee Company many times but were unable to get through.
He insisted his account had been paid in full as all his businesses are paid for with one debit order and the rest still had their lines connected.
According to Hawkins the technician working on the problem yesterday was unable to give him an estimate on when the landline would be up and running again.