At some point in the near future, Google may very well offer a free ad-supported mobile service. But in the meantime, Google with its business model of free is working hard to court mobile carriers as it eyes the lucrative wireless ad market. 

"We are partnering with almost all of the carriers and manufacturers to get Google search and other Google applications onto their devices and networks," a Google spokesman told The Wall Street Journal.

While Google sees carriers as partners for now, it may also look to be a competitor in the near future. Earlier this week, the FCC set the rules for an upcoming spectrum auction, giving the search giant some of what it had asked for, but declining to mandate rules that would require the winning bidder to sell spectrum to competitors at wholesale prices. The decision put Google in the slightly awkward position of now having to befriend carriers it had previously worked hard to unseat.

Google will now work to cut deals with mobile carriers, who see the search leader as both a hero and villain. Carriers are eager to offer Google applications in their phones to lure customers in a competitive market. But Verizon, among others, is wary of giving Google a future opening.

"What this really boils down to is a battle for the mobile ad dollar," Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam said in a recent interview. "They want a disproportionate share of the revenue."