It is a lot of trouble to change phone companies and keep your number in Saudi Arabia

It's like the bad old days in the US but worse. The day I arrived in Saudi Arabia, I signed up with Mobily mobile phone service (prepaid no contract, which is at least better than the prepaid offerings in the US). Trouble was, I had zero signal inside my office so everybody said I should switch to STC. When I went to do that, I had to try 3 stores before I found one with a SIM card. When that was accomplished they asked me for the phone number and my Iqama (expat ID card) and just said to wait a few days. Then a couple of days later I got a message saying "sorry we could not complete your request because your ID doesn't match." I had used my passport rather than Iqama when I signed up with Mobily. After another 1 hour visit to the STC store I finally had to go to the Mobily store and give them my Iqama. They tried to resist updating the record to keep me from switching. I finally got it done but it took 6 trips to STC and 1 to Mobily. Hope I never have to visit the store again.