Pakistan Launches 3G On Telenor
The Pakistani government seeks to give the nation's economy a boost, so it has awarded 3G licenses to some mobile carriers
After last week’s report that Pakistan would be handing out 3G licenses, it looks like those licenses are already being used, at least by Telenor. We’ve viewed a number of tweets from users in Pakistan who say they are testing 3G service.
Pakistani officials said last week that they would award 3G licenses to both national and international mobile carriers. They also said it would be done transparently, although it seems as if Telenor users were quite surprised when they saw that they suddenly had 3G Internet service on their mobile phones.
Which carriers bid for 3G in Pakistan
There has been no official announcement yet about which carriers have won the 3G license or even which carriers were taking part in the “transparent” bidding process. Last week officials said they were hoping that international bidders would take part in the process.
However, with no official announcement about who the bidders were or what the process was like, it is certainly a surprise that Telenor suddenly has 3G on its network, particularly since executives from Mobilink and Vimpelcom were part of the delegation from the telecom industry which met with government officials.