A NORTHLEW woman says she cannot say ?G?Day? to her daughter Down Under because of the continuing poor telephone service the village receives. Alison Shelton?s daughter is currently travelling in Australia, but she says staying in contact with 18-year-old Hayley is made virtually impossible because of recurring disconnection problems which BT has so far failed to tackle. Mrs Shelton said she became aware of the latest problem when she tried to link to the internet to check if she had received any e-mails from Australia, but was unable to establish a connection. ?She is 18 and she is travelling for nine weeks over there. It is the first time she has been away from home, and she has got to be able to get in touch if she needs us,? said Mrs Shelton. She said Hayley was also anxious about her 80-year-old father who lives next door and needs to be able to telephone his daughter in case of an emergency. Mrs Shelton said she had been disconnected for two weeks at the beginning of October, throughout the Christmas period and on and off for the last fortnight. She said the service the village received was ?totally unacceptable? and she was fed up with how BT were dealing with the complaints she made. ?You can?t speak to the same person twice. It is hopeless. I have been told the problem is because the line is underground, because it is overground, equipment failure, you get a different story each time.? Mrs Shelton lives just outside Northlew and has lived in the area for four and a half years. ?When we first moved in, if anyone phoned us up it sounded like we were in a tin box, and that started from day one.? She said she had spoken to her neighbours who had suffered similar problems with telephone lines. The high level of faults with the telephone service provided by BT in Northlew has been a long-running source of complaint for villagers. Twelve months ago, the firm gave its assurance improvement works on cabling had been carried out and that the situation would continue to be monitored. Now, the telecommunications giant says further improvements to address the problems will be carried out within the next six months. Jason Mann, BT spokesperson said the company was committed to carrying out improvement works to the network which serves Northlew. He said at the end of last month, 300 metres of overhead cable, which appeared to have been damaged by gunshot, had been replaced. He said: ?We are pushing ahead with plans to set up an upgraded radio link between Beaworthy and Northlew. Once completed, which should be within the next six months, we will transfer all customers served by the old cables to the radio link, which should provide a more reliable service. ?This radio upgrade represents an investment in the region of £30,000 and will enable the network to carry more services and deal with more customers.?