Many people in the Highlands and Islands will not get Christmas calls from their families as a massive number of phones are still out of order since a raft of lighting strikes damaged the network nearly two weeks ago.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of people are affected with broadband and internet services also down in many places across the north.
It could be into February before a full service is restored to all, it is understood.
Lightning bolts struck thousands of times across northern Scotland over a two day period during the electrical storms amid the violent 'weather bomb' storm earlier this month.
Utility company BT said it has drafted in 60 extra engineers from across the UK to help tackle a mammoth backlog of repair work in the Highlands and Islands.
Engineers are working all hours including over weekends to try to get people reconnected.
About 100 engineers will be undertaking repairs over the traditional festive public holidays with BT paying overtime for staff to work extra hours.
Parts of the Western Isles have been badly hit with villagers in the Callanish and Ness districts still cut-off.
Repair efforts are also ongoing across Orkney where there are extensive phone problems.
However, the continuing threat of lightning strikes means it is often too dangerous for staff to work outside on the telecommunications network, creating further delays.
Kirkwall councillor Alistair Gordon has to wait until mid-January for an engineer's visit.
He said: "We been off since December 14 and BT say they'll send an engineer on January 14.
"In the meantime, I did a patch-up job so I can get broadband or phone line but not both."
A BT spokesman said a significant number of phone faults have been reported.
He said: "These are exceptional circumstances and the situation is particularly bad in places.
"We are trying to clear the backlog. Some faults will take a while before we can get people back online."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article