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Mt Studholme communication tower - Source: ONE News -
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New Zealanders may not realise the lengths required to keep their TV's on and their phones ringing.
Repairmen have clambered up the frozen summit of Mt Studholme in the South Island for the second time in a week to keep the essentials going.
The tower is the lifeline here, it provides phone and TV to thousands and too much winter snow and ice has put it all in jeopardy.
"Snow forms on wires, and snow just gets heavier as it forms and wires can't take the weight and just break", says Warren Rooney of Rooney earthmoving.
It is only the second winter in 17 years that the tower has been out of action, and it is a mission to repair.
There could be upwards of 1.2 tonne of ice on each wire says Rex McDonald of Alpine Energy.
"It's the second time the boys have been up here this week", says McDonald.
"We repaired it on Saturday, unfortunately it snowed again so in the last week we've been up twice to repair that, but there are no complaints", he says.
"All the boys enjoy this sort of work" says McDonald.
