WINCHESTER residents have been giving their views of the poor mobile phone signal affecting the city recently.

The problems were caused by the removal of a temporary mast, which used network providers including O2 and Vodafone, on the corner of Andover Road and Bereweeke Road.

There are no sings of a replacement yet, although a message on O2's service page said an update would be provided by December 3.

On the Hampshire Chronicle Facebook page, readers expressed their frustration with the situation.

Paula Groves said: “Went into O2 shop to ask about it. The excuse was there is no mast in town and so many more people in town at the moment, trying to use their phones. It feels as though Winchester has gone back to the early 2000’s. Although it has never been brilliant to be honest.

“I live at the top of town and is a nightmare at home too. O2 joining with Virgin is even worse!

“Who do we complain to, the council?? If there are a lot of us complaining maybe they will do something about it.”

Yvonne McFarlane said: “This is the third week now, I think we all deserve a refund for the month of November, I can’t use my phone in Winchester for anything.”

Sharon Bondsfield said: “Absolute nightmare. No signal to be able to use the credit card machine in the Charity Christmas Card shop yesterday or phone signal to message for help!”

The message for the Winchester area on O2's status checker currently says: “We've had to remove a mast near you. We’ve upgraded other masts nearby to help boost the network, but we’re sorry if you’re still having signal issues.

“We’re working to get a new mast up and running as soon as we can. Please bear with us. We’ll update you by December 3.”