Firefox Mobile will finally hit smartphones later this year, and as Mozilla’s vice president of engineering Mike Schroepfer puts it, not only users are interested to learn more about the project but mobile carriers and operators are too.

You see, the introduction of a free mobile browser is potentially threatening to carriers who have long limited and controlled what users can access in order to maximize their revenue by creating so-called “walled gardens” where only their own for-fee services can be accessed. Moreover, this approach also reduces use of limited 3G bandwidth, meaning carriers don’t have to build a more robust network to handle the influx of traffic a free browser would likely introduce.

This, however, is the brick wall that Mozilla wants to crush as it tries to convince carriers to allow use of mobile Firefox, which according to them, would encourage more browsing and open the door for more data transmission revenue and create a bigger audience for mobile ads.