With the 5G capex cycle firmly over, a complete lack of 5G monetization, and attention already turning to 6G, the mobile industry is at least aware that it is on a knife edge. We have compared the mobile industry to the late stages of the Roman Empire previously, but at MWC 2024, both operators and vendors admitted that the barbarians would be a welcome relief. The two camps are intractable – enmeshed in a sordid history of technical debt, legacy burdens, and the bloated headcounts needed to handle the weight of all those decisions. Operators are painfully aware of the dissonance between how they represent their ‘network’ in marketing, as a single powerful platform, and the reality of the situation…