A Kingsbridge businesswoman has been left fuming after internet and phone problems resulted in lengthy delays to the opening of her new shop.

Carmen Redondo, who runs Carmen & Rafaele, a bespoke furniture and design shop on Bridge Street, claimed poor service from telecoms firms Vodafone and Openreach meant she was without proper internet and telephone service for eight weeks, adding that it forced her to delay the opening of her shop by a month.

Even then, she was without internet, causing havoc to the running of her business as she was compelled to do most of her work from home during unsocial hours.

Ms Redondo said: “It would be lovely to work from the shop, but I was having to work until 3am for six weeks because I couldn’t place any orders from the shop. I also haven’t got a website or social media because there are only so many hours in a day.”

The problems stem from a decision by Openreach to stop connecting new copper lines a year ago.

The firm, a subsidiary of BT, is one of a limited number of companies installing fibre optic cables across the UK as it phases out old copper lines in time for the Big-Switch off, scheduled for 2025. This is when the entire country will fully transition to broadband, which is faster and more reliable.

But a possible result of this is that new businesses could come unstuck if reception in the area is poor or important engineering work to update a phone line is needed prior to opening a premises.

Ms Redondo added that not having internet or a landline was “killing my business”.

She said: “How can you run a business like this? It’s a scandal. I was in Madeira and the connection there was super fast.”

According to Ofcom, if there is a fault with a broadband or landline connection, customers should approach their provider – in Ms Redondo’s case, Vodafone.

As an interim solution Ms Redondo was initially told to install a dongle (a small device that allows a person to access 3G), but this did not work either as the shop is located in a broadband blackspot.

A shop next door, reportedly also waited for a connection for six months, although this paper was unable to verify the claim as the owner of the premises declined to comment.

To add to Ms Redondo’s woes, Vodafone unexpectedly cancelled her contract last month, without her say-so, although work to lay a one-metre of duct from a box outside of the premises to supply a fibre connection was reportedly completed on November 6.

Ms Redondo is currently using a SimHub, a plug-in device that can replace traditional broadband service, but the current system is only good for receiving and sending emails, she said, adding that it has been unreliable in poor weather.

“When it rains or it’s misty, it goes from 65-67mps (megabytes per second) to 34mps. Ideally I’d like a fibre connection. If there’s an emergency there’s no back-up service.”

Sally Bell, the head of external communications (South) for Openreach, was contacted by this paper. She said: “We're sorry for the delay getting Carmen and Rafaele connected to our Full Fibre service. Engineers did the necessary work to install new duct up to the front of the shop earlier in November but the order was cancelled by the customer’s provider.

“If the customer makes a new order for the service through their provider, and we're working to get that done as soon as possible, allowing the customer to be connected.”

She confirmed that Openreach had stopped the sale of copper-based products across the UK “to encourage people to move to new digital services”, irrespective of whether customers were signing up to a new contract, or upgrading their broadband or phone service.

“This is because everybody will need to have a digital phone line two years’ time – as BT Group is switching off the old analogue phone platform, which works over copper lines. Instead, people’s phone service will be delivered digitally over the internet – similar to Zoom or Skype,” she added.

She also explained that it did not make sense for the company where it had rolled out new digital fibre-based network to keep lots of different old technologies running, as “it’s inefficient and will need upgrading or replacing to keep up with the digital demands of today’s customers”.

She added: “Spare parts are going out of manufacture and additionally, many of the people who designed, built and operated the system are retired or close to retirement, so skills are increasingly scarce.”