THE phone woes at Palm Cove could finally be over after the lines went dead for the eighth time in six months yesterday.

At least a handful of residents and businesses were affected by the latest drop-out of telephone services.

Telstra’s general manager for the Far North Wally Donaldson apologised for the inconvenience, which he said affected fewer people than during previous drop-outs.

Mr Donaldson said repair work to fix the problems were to blame for the incident.

He blamed rodents, which had chewed electrical equipment in a roadside cabinet supplying phone service to the Cedar Rd end of Williams Esplanade, for the ongoing problems.

"We repaired it last week and today did additional work to ensure it wouldn’t happen again. Unfortunately, while doing that some of the services were interrupted," he said.

"Hopefully, this is the end of it and people will get good service from now on."

Alassio on the Beach owner Sue Dalgleish said yesterday’s drop-out was the eighth time phone services had gone down since the end of June last year.

"They’re back up now, but for how long I don’t know," she said.

Barrister Michael Sumner-Potts, who practises from home, said he was "fed up" with the unreliable phone service.

Other affected business owners have had to divert incoming calls to mobile phones and use manual systems to process credit cards.

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