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.

Tweeting 3G news

One user said he was “impressed” while testing Telenor’s service at a “remote location with 20% signals.” Other users posted pictures showing that their mobile phones are now picking up 3G service on Telenor’s network.

//

Testing Telenor PK's 3G service on a remote location with just 20% signals. So far impressed depending on signal… http://t.co/Ya3yqGlkFx

— Ahmad Wahid (@AhmadWahid1) April 9, 2014

Since everyone is sharing it; here's a Speedtest result of Telenor PK on 3G: pic.twitter.com/E3wF6UTwuQ

— Uzair Ghani (@UzairGhani) April 5, 2014

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.