The ultimate success or failure will depend heavily on its takeup by such networks and so far the omens are looking good. Other carrier partners include Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, and Telenor.

Is Mozilla a viable contender in a mobile space occupied by three vendors, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, with deep pockets and no choice but to plough on to the bitter end? Undoubtedly, yes, and for a simple reason; carriers such as Telefonica O2 are determined not to become a mere delivery mechanism for the big three to make money.

Android is free but carriers resent the loss of control over the revenue that Google ultimately makes from the services that run on top of it. This was tolerable when it was Apple; putting up with the same deal from Google and possibly Microsoft is harder to stomach.

Some of this is desperation, of course, given that Telefnica O2 in particular has been under financial pressure in recent times.

"We don't like the fact that one part of the value chain of our business is tightly controlled," Telefnica director of product development, Carlos Domingo told Bloomberg. "In the case of the emerging countries it's worse, because it becomes a monopoly by Google." Ouch.