A breakdown in communications is costing a businesswoman dear.

Photographer Kate Mallender said she is in a desperate situation because she has lost her broadband internet access, which is vital to her home business.

She believes the problem came about because of another communication breakdown - between two top companies.

Mrs Mallender, of Stamford Bridge, said she lost her access, provided by Wanadoo, on March 17.

"My children were both on the internet and it suddenly went down.

"My husband had a look at it to see what was wrong.

"There wasn't anything wrong with the computer, or the modem, so we called Wanadoo."

Mrs Mallender said after five or six calls to the internet provider, they carried out a test on her line and discovered that something was wrong with it.

Although Wanadoo provides Mrs Mallender's broadband, it does so using BT telephone lines.

She said Wanadoo told her BT had unplugged her connection at the local exchange, to make room for one of its own customers.

Now engineers have told her there is no room left in the exchange to reconnect her line.

"I run a small business and rely daily on broadband to email pictures and to run my website," she said.

"Every day that goes by, I stand to lose customers, but these big companies don't seem to care.

"They have disconnected the service at random, left me to try and sort it out and can't offer any hope of getting me back on line."

Mrs Mallender contacted BT's faults line last Monday.

"The man I spoke to was extremely unhelpful. He told me he could not speak to me because I wasn't a BT customer," she said.

"I asked to speak to his manager, but he wouldn't put him on.

"Then he told me he had to end the call, and hung up.

"Wanadoo keeps passing me between customer services and technical support.

"Basically, I'm getting nowhere. They say it isn't something they can sort out - it's BT's problem.

"And BT tell me Wanadoo should contact them on my behalf.

"I feel totally helpless."

A Wanadoo spokesman said they were investigating the situation.

A BT spokesman said they were looking into the allegation that they had unplugged Mrs Mallender's connection at the local exchange.

Updated: 10:10 Tuesday, March 28, 2006