INTERNET - Google to get moving on wireless - It unveils plans for software to boost Web surfing on cellphones.

After months of speculation, Google on Monday unveiled its vision to transform the wireless industry by making mobile phones as good for Web surfing as personal computers.

Google and a consortium of 33 companies, including mobile- handset makers, phone carriers and other technology leaders, plan to offer free software to power mobile phones that will hit the market in the next six to 12 months. Through the Open Handset Alliance, Google wants to force the industry to give phone users better Web access.

Now everyone wants to know: Can the Internet giant succeed?

Google's interest is twofold: It wants to broaden Internet usage, and it wants to tap into mobile advertising revenue, which is expected to surge in coming years. To do both, Google is aiming to make its services, such as search, e-mail and maps, available to anyone anywhere -- something it has had trouble doing through partnerships with cellphone carriers, which typically restrict what customers can do with their phones.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Google is banking that consumers want free phone software that lets them get driving directions, watch videos and perform other tasks on the go.

Since Apple Inc. whetted the appetite for an Internet-friendly phone with its iPhone this summer, frustration has grown with slow and cumbersome Web browsing. And speculation about a Google phone -- dubbed the GPhone by the blogosphere -- has soared.

Google would not say whether it plans at some point to build its own branded phone. Instead Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said he wanted thousands of different phones to use the free software.

"We want to create a whole new mobile experience for users," Schmidt said. "Mobile users want the same applications on the phone as they use on the Internet."

Despite its influence as the world's fifth most valuable company, Google faces serious challenges in shaking up the wireless industry. Mobile providers have a long-standing hold on what customers can do with their cellphones, dictating which handsets work on their networks and which programs can be run on them.

In recruiting powerful partners such as Motorola Inc., Samsung, Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA, Google has made inroads in its quest to get the industry to open up. But no one can know the effect until the handsets appear on the market.