Sam Welch (left) and wife, Emily, are not happy about the un-reliable landline and cellphone coverage in rural Waikato.

Shearer Sam Welch crashed his sledgehammer on to his digger's bucket.

The pin holding the bucket responded by slashing back through his hand - slicing two tendons and spilling a copious amount of blood. Welch knew he was in trouble.

Farming accidents like this happen almost daily in rural New Zealand as farms toil to serve a global 21st century economy hungry for our lamb and milk. But when the accident happens in the Waikaretu Valley - 50km north-west of Hamilton - rural New Zealand may as well as be in the 19th century.

World record shearer Sam Welch has been wrestling with phone issues recently. In 2013 he and four others shore 2638 lambs in eight hours.

Because, for Welch, help wasn't at the other end of a phone line. Waikaretu Valley hasn't had a reliable landline service for weeks meaning that the community of around 40 households has had limited to no access to 111 emergency calls.

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At fault for plunging Waikaretu Valley back into the dark ages is antiquated microwave technology which cuts out during bad weather and has now broken down.

The stressed out community has been on to Chorus - which is responsible for keeping the network up and running - for weeks and is worried that, while they wait for repairs, a serious emergency is going to go unanswered.

Waikaretu School principal Ron Baptist, who has sole charge of 19 students, said the landline had been faulty since he arrived at the beginning of the year.

"I've been in school this week and we haven't got a phone but fortunately we're on school holidays at the moment. It was playing up before, every time it rains the phones go out."

Baptist says the school has internet but is out of cellphone range, meaning that when the landline cuts out he worries about children falling ill. To make matters worse, he says some pupils suffer from allergies and would require a fast response.

"It's not always easy when I'm a sole principal observing a sick child and trying to deal with a classroom situation at the same time."

As well as safety concerns, the area's businesses are counting the cost of being cut off.

Welch's wife Emily said farmers depended on a reliable phones for their businesses, and her parents' caving operation had also been badly hit.

"It's very hard to take bookings. A lot of people like to book by phone but when they can't contact us they don't come, so there's lost income. We're trying to run a shearing business which is a lot of phone work," she says.

Chorus is naturally apologetic - but providing a 21st century solution by upgrading to modern copper lines or mobile technology was just too pricey

"We have been struggling this winter and we have not been fast enough to sort this issue out," spokesman Steve Pettigrew said. "We can only offer our apologies to rural areas that have not been well served by mobile services."

The company's priority now is to repair the microwave service and replacing a faulty satellite switch.

The Ministry of Education is also on the case and will contact the school to reconnect them to the outside world tomorrow.

"We don't think this issue will be difficult to fix. We upgraded the school's wireless connection in December last year and they should be able to use Skype, or install voice over IP (VOIP)," head of education infrastructure service Jerome Sheppard said.

Federated Farmers spokesman Anders Crofoot says Chorus or Spark should invest more in equipment to make sure Waikaretu is brought back online - but the community was by no means no oddity in rural New Zealand.

"Papatowai and Owaka down in Otago have suffered intermittent landline service because of faults from obsolete technology being used to connect them to the rest of the country. This was fixed by Chorus technicians addressing a fault in the network, but it is shameful that it took them so long to fix it," he said.

As for how Welch dealt with his injured and bloody hand, he was forced to send an email to his mother-in-law who lives nearby. She picked it up 45 minutes later. By that time, one of his workers had already turned up and driven him to the nearest doctor 35 minutes away.





