While we fully understand the reasons behind requiring all prepaid phone users to register, we may as well point out how the reality behind the exercise spells out as a bad omen for a country that we like very much, and have chosen as our place to live and work.

Comparatively a minor measure, the compulsory registration seems to demonstrate a basically defunct infrastructure. Firstly, the whole operation was to be conducted earlier, as instructed by someone not lower than the honourable minister himself. It failed. Therefore, all of us prepaid phone users find ourselves in a second trial. Almost daily reminders, many registration booths, and still no success.

We were tired enough of those pesky reminders, and went to our closest Maxis/Hotlink dealer about two months ago and registered after having obtained a clear photocopy of our passports. The reminders kept coming, though, over weeks. We tried to call HotLink, but didn't get beyond the automated answering boxes. We sent several e-mails using the online feedback form, but never got a confirmation, not to mention an answer. One of our accounts is with Hotlink, one with Maxis.

So we registered again, with a new set of copies of our passports, with the same dealer, for our two accounts. Another two weeks later, and the pesky reminders kept coming. So we went to Maxis Centre at KLCC. But we couldn't register immediately. Okay, we could type in our details; for the first time assisted by some helpful people, which made us feel better. Unfortunately, it would take 'the system' three to four days to activate our registration. We were asked to ignore the reminders until then.

We are still hoping for the registration to be completed after that much hassle. We didn't have to show our passports at Maxis, nor was a copy collected. So we could have entered whatever details we felt like. And we could observe that the same happened to about everyone else.

We have lost two and half days for our first two efforts to register (waiting for the shop to open, get the passport copies, filling the forms); plus the time writing e-mails to Maxis and Hotlink, plus the time trying to call them, including deleting tens of those reminders. The last step was done on a Saturday, from around 1pm to 6pm - that is around five hours for the trips from home to dealer.

Put simply, we can only conclude that - if it wasn't so overused already - that the state of affairs in this country is slightly below the Third World. If registration of a pre-paid phone is an affair like the one mentioned above, something must be very rotten. To top it all, the whole exercise defeats the objective - allowing the holder of a prepaid account to enter false details.

And then, there is the utter incompetence on the side of Maxis/Hotlink in that:

• there is no chance to talk to a human on the phone; not to mention someone to help you solve that problem;