Huizhi Ren, who owns Il Lago Pizzeria in Mt Warrigal, last week noticed his business had started to drop off.

“On Tuesday I found I haven’t got any reservations,” Mr Huizhi said.

“I found my telephone doesn’t work so I called Optus and they said I had been disconnected because of the switch to NBN.

“They said they can contact NBN and it would take between seven and 10 days to get my telephone connected.”

Speaking late last week, Mr Huizhi said his business was down by about half.

“It’s been really quiet,” he said.

“Usually with this business the regular customers are always calling in but now they can’t because the phone has been disconnected. So I’ve had to put my mobile telephone number on Facebook and Google so they can connect with us.”

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He also claimed he had not received any notification from Optus that they were going to cut off his phone.

An Optus spokeswoman confirmed the telco did cut off the pizzeria’s business phone – as part of the NBN rollout.

NBNCo puts forward an 18-month window between the network being ready in an area and when the copper network is shut off.

The spokeswoman said Optus had made efforts to contact Mr Huizhi for the final three months approaching that cut off date.

“Optus proactively contacts customers via letter, email and SMS when the NBN becomes serviceable in their area, giving them a minimum of 90 days’ notice to place an order for the NBN with either Optus or a competitor,” the spokeswoman said.

“Optus customer service has contacted the customer and has arranged for an NBN technician to visit the property and install the required infrastructure to connect them to the NBN, which should be completed within 10 days,” she said.

“If the customer had contacted Optus or another provider to sign up to the NBN before the disconnection date, service would have remained active until NBN services were successfully installed.”

The spokeswoman did not state whether Mr Huizhi would be able to retain his business number.