Pakistani embassy, Riyadh

Recently, for the first time I had the chance to use one of the services offered by our Pakistani embassy in Riyadh. My passport was out of pages so I had to get a new one. The purpose of this post is not to bash our embassy for all its inefficiencies. In fact I want to appreciate it for doing a good job and suggest a few improvements. My guess is they entertain around 500 passport applications a day. Handling such a crowd (keeping in mind our nation's attitude) is not a simple job.

Now, the Pakistani embassy in Riyadh can also process applications for computerized passports. NADRA has developed an automated system to handle passport requests in Pakistan and it seems like they have replicated exactly the same system in Riyadh embassy.

I had to take a day off from office in Dhahran to go to Riyadh for this. They follow a "token" system. I had been told that I have to be there early in the morning to collect my "token". Tokens usually finish by 8+ am. There is only certain number of passport applications that can be processed in a day so the tokens are limited. I reached there at 7:45am and the token number I got was like 100 +. The guy handing out the tokens advised me that this would turn up some where around 11am. So I went for breakfast, came back around 11am and waited till 2pm. This is when my turn came. Once your number actually turns up, the whole process takes only 15 minutes. All this unnecessary wait causes severe congestion at the premises which results in a lot of unpleasant incidents.

There are a lot of ways this can be controlled. In today's high-tech world, implementing a simple appointment scheduling system over the phone/Internet is not difficult. In fact both methods can be used in parallel. A quick search on Google showed me a couple of open source solutions as well. Yes, the solution to the problem is that simple. This will avoid all the crowding at the embassy and also help people plan their visit.

Unfortunately there is no way to convey any feedback to the embassy. There is no comment/suggestion box at the embassy and no working email contact. Currently they have two websites. One is linked via the new (ugly) renovated Ministry of Foreign Affairs portal and the other is this old one. It looks like the consulate is currently using the old one. The contact email address on them is parep_riyadh@yahoo.com. No matter how hard you try you will never get a response from this address. In fact they have actually removed the address from the older site now.

There must be a way to get in touch with Ministry of Foreign Affairs in such cases where local embassies cannot be contacted. Would definitely expect better performance from mofa under the leadership of our highly qualified foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar.

VOIP using dual mode IP cordless phone

My first exposure to VOIP (voice over internet protocol) was back in 2001 while working on my final year university project. My buddy Hasnain and I were implementing a protocol PINT (PSTN/Internet Interworking). We implemented it on Linux using Kdeveloper in C++/QT.

That is when I switched to Linux for good as well. Since then I also have been using gnomeeting and have seen it grow into ekiga. Once I moved out of Pakistan, I started using ekiga regularly to call home using diamondcard.us as the service provider. That is the default voip service available with ekiga. Diamondcard.us voice quality to Pakistan was not that good so i also subscribed to another service connect2pakistan.com. I was overjoyed to find that my Nokia e51 has a built in voip phone. Therefore I was able call any one on my contact list via voip with a single click. Sadly, it drained out my battery life very quickly.

On the other hand, I had a regular cordless PSTN phone lying around at home. It would be days before it would be used. Eventually one day it just died. I think the reason was lack of use :) This gave me the idea of having a cordless phone which would be my sip phone as well. Gigaset came up to be the first result on google. Some time back it was bought by Siemens. The only problem I saw in their phones was that they were mostly over kill for my needs. It had tons of features which I would never need. Never the less I ordered one from Amazon since IP phones are not available here in Saudi. Here is what I got myself http://www.amazon.com/Solution-Accounts-C610A-IP-1-Handset-Telephone/dp/B004SBDQMG

I think this is the first time I have got myself something known as DECT based cordless phone. Interestingly these kind of cordless has 3 items. One main base which connects to the wireless router and PSTN line. The cordless and its charging station can be placed any where at home since it communicates with the main base over wireless. The phone is extremely easy to configure via its web interface. It can be configured to use up to six VOIP service providers. Users can configure prefix dialing based rules but I choose my connection every time a number is dialled. It has a lot of other stuff which I do not think I will ever use like face-book, email and also built in answering machine. Weather update on the home screen is pretty cool though.

Since the VOIP connections are always connected you can also get local numbers by providers to be diverted to your phone. For example connect2paksitan.com offers a Pakistani number for around $5 a month. The best part is that the voice quality of the phone is amazing both over SIP and fixed line.

I identified two problems upon setting up the phone. Since normally this kind of equipment comes with adapters I assumed that it would be 110/220V but sadly since it was ordered from Amazon US it was 110V only. Can live with this especially in Saudi since Khobar/Dammam normally has both sockets in most homes.

Secondly callers number would not appear on the screen every time there was an incoming call. Googling made me realize that CLI settings in these phones are region based and since this was for US it wouldn't work in Saudi. So obviously my next step was to look our for gigaset's support. There were two thing I did. One I sent an email to gigaset support via their main web site. Secondly searching gigaset support middle east came up with linked-in profile of the CEO of gigaset Dubai. Well i added him to my linked in.


Next day interestingly the CEO did add me to his profile. So I instantly sent him an email explaining my problem. By evening I was on phone with gigaset support Saudi Arabia :) After he got all the details of the phone and where i bought it from :) he sent me a firmware file which i uploaded to the phone. There it was CLI working like a charm.

Corruption (Bribe)

I was flying out of Islamabad on April 30th 2009 with my family. The airport was least crowded and suddenly the customs officer stopped me. Well he asked me "Can I open your luggage?". I replied "No" in a cheeky manner. I said I have family with me so please "meharbani karaain". The reply I got was "aap hum per meharabani karain hum aap per kardaain gay". vow even my wife was shocked at this. Well I said no and moved on.

At a time when our country is falling apart these guys are still busy doing their stuff. I thought of complaining but was afraid that he might suddenly "discover" narcotics in my luggage. What a pity.