Several CBD businesses had their EFTPOS terminals rendered either unusable or seriously affected by a Telstra 3G network interruption that began in early February.

After being contacted by Fairfax Media, Telstra apologised on Tuesday afternoon and said the problem – a hardware fault at a local base station – had been repaired.

But Ken Lane Menswear owner Patrick Lane said the issue had created an embarrassing and damaging situation for weeks at his business, where about 95 per cent of sales were conducted by EFTPOS. He said it could take up to three minutes for a sale to be declined and it often took two or three attempts before the transaction was successful.

“On Friday, it was a comedy – I was standing out in the middle of The Levee holding [the EFTPOS machine] in the air, it was just ridiculous,” he said.

“It’s embarrassing, as a business, that people have made that commitment to purchase and you can’t actually take their money. They’ve got things to do, they don’t want to be standing around waiting. It’s embarrassing that we live in a first world society but we have a third world telecommunications network in Maitland.”

Sweet Retreat Cafe is another High Street business that’s been affected by the problem.

Waitress Sam Thompson said the business had been unable to use its EFTPOS terminal for about a week, which meant the cafe could only accept cash payments.

“It’s happened a couple of times but it happened for this long before, so we’re kind of shocked,” she said.

A 3G service interruption for the 2320 postcode was listed on Telstra’s service status web page on Monday and noted the end date was "TBC”.

Telstra area general manager Tricia Wilson apologised for the interruption.

“We understand the frustration this has caused and we thank customers for their patience as we have worked to restore services,” she said.