The town has had limited 3G and 4G service with Telstra since about 3.30pm on Monday, March 25, leaving residents and business-owners feeling helpless. Telstra confirmed on the morning of Friday, March 29, the issue was resolved the previous night.

The Walla Food Mill owner Grace Phillips, said she feels frustrated as to how long it is taking for the service to be repaired.

"It's almost like they didn't make it a priority because we are not a major city, but we're still a pretty busy town," she said.

"We should be acknowledged."

Mrs Phillips was on the online chat on Tuesday with a Telstra representative to flag the issue she was having.

"Telstra just wouldn't acknowledge it all day," she said.

"We've had plenty of people coming in, and I was online talking to someone, and they were just like, 'no, there's no outage in your area'.

"And I'm like, 'well, there is'. And then I just had to give up, and I just went with Optus."

Mrs Phillips said her EFTPOS machines have not been working, which has been difficult for her business as most customers pay by card.

The Gerogery resident said she had to buy an Optus sim card for her phone, to use as a hotspot for the EFTPOS machines to work.

In the cafe's busiest week leading up to Easter, she said she would not have had any business without her decision.

"If I didn't know that I could do that, there's a lot of businesses in the town that haven't done that, they're just running without EFTPOS" she said.

"I'm missing phone calls from suppliers and that because they can't get through to me because I have no service.

"You can't get any phone calls. We've got people coming in missing medical stuff, doctor's appointments and that that are over the phone.

"They've missed them because there's just calls are coming through until later when you might get a bit of service for 10 minutes or your phone calls come through as missed calls or voicemails, but you can't call them back."

Mrs Phillips said her phone has been stuck on SOS mode or if she is lucky, she will get one bar of service to make a phone call, but she cannot really hear the other person on the end of the line.

Social media apps and emails have also not been loading.

The cafe owner said this is not the first time there has been a Telstra outage in the area.

"It would have been last year sometime but we were out of it for two days before they fixed it," she said.

"I kept saying to them, 'I think it's something to do with the tower', but they just wouldn't acknowledge it."

Walla resident and business owner Andrew Kotzur said that the community has been left in the dark.

"We just don't know what's going on, but it's causing us a bit of grief," he said.

He said landlines are still working, but his sales staff rely heavily on mobile phone usage.

"So we're just hoping people realise there's a problem and to call a landline," he said.

"Sometimes you'll have a missed call and get a text message. And I had one on my own where somebody tried to ring me about nine o'clock this morning, and I got a text message at 11.30 saying I had a missed call."

Mr Kotzur said some members in the community struggled to find a way to contact Telstra and were left on hold for over an hour each time.

He said one person was told to turn their phone off and on again to fix the problem.

Mr Kotzur said on Tuesday afternoon, a Telstra representative visited the mobile tower and text messages started to go through, but shortly after they stopped sending again.

He said some residents have since been told they may have to wait until after Easter until they know what the problem is.

A technician from Telstra was onsite on Thursday, March 28, however it was unclear as to how long it would take to resolve the issue.

Telstra regional general manager Chris Taylor apologised for the frustration the outage has caused.

"A fault occurred at our mobile site in Walla Monday afternoon and is impacting some 3G and 4G mobile services in the area," he said.

"Calls to triple zero, landlines and mobile coverage from other providers are not impacted.

"We apologise for the inconvenience and have a technician on site working to get the issue resolved as quickly as possible.

"Unfortunately, a glitch in our system prevented the Telstra Outages page from being updated and while it is fixed now, we're sorry for the frustration that caused the community in Walla."

Telstra confirmed on the morning of Friday, March 29, the issue was resolved.

"The issue affecting 3G and 4G mobile services in Walla Walla was fixed last night," Mr Taylor said.

"Our crews worked as quickly as possible to get services restored and we're sorry for the inconvenience and frustration this issue caused the community.

"Our technician identified the fault at our mobile site was caused by damage to our fibre optic cables which required a specialist Telstra fibre repair crew to be deployed.

"All mobile services are now working properly; however, we will continue to monitor the site.

"Calls to Triple Zero, landlines and mobile coverage from other providers were not impacted at any stage."

Mr Taylor suggested using other methods to keep connected.

"In the interim, if residents have an NBN service at home or access to a Wi-Fi signal, we encourage people to activate the free Wi-Fi calling setting on their mobile devices," he said.

"Wi-Fi calling works even during a mobile outage and is a free setting on most popular mobile phones, which allows your mobile to use a Wi-Fi network to make and receive mobile calls."

He said that Telstra is not responsible for the operation of the EFTPOS network.

"We know many businesses use the Telstra network for their EFTPOS terminals," he said.

"However, Telstra does not operate the EFTPOS network; it is operated by financial institutions. Many EFTPOS terminals can also be connected using fixed line or Wi-Fi/NBN internet connections.

"Retailers should contact their bank for more information and details on how to switch between these methods."