Many people have problems understanding the meaning of Bc (committed burst) used with traffic policing. Everyone seems to know the “magic” formula (Bc=1,5sec*CIR) but have a vague understanding of the reasons behind it. Let’s clear the confusion and see what Bc really affects when it comes to policing.

Averaging and Smoothing

Imagine you’re driving a car and want to find out your speed. In order to do this, you need to count the time (T) it takes you to pass the distance (S). The speed is then V=S/T – what a nice looking elementary school formula. So if you drove 100 miles in 1 hour your speed is 100 Mph. However, if you drove 50 miles in 30 minutes, your speed is the same 100 Mph. The only difference between the two measurements is the time interval used. Ideally, the only real value is your instant speed defined as the limit of S/T with T going to zero. However, this only works well in mathematics – in the real world, you always need a finite time interval to perform the measurement.
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