This tallies how many times the receive FIFO on the CBR interface ran dry -- had no cell data available when the transmit clock needed one -- which is the same starvation condition lportStarvation reports as a state but expressed here as a running counter. An admin uses this to gauge frequency rather than just current status; a count that keeps climbing even after lportStarvation clears back to ok indicates an intermittent, recurring supply problem. For example, a count incrementing by roughly 1 every few minutes suggests periodic micro-bursts of congestion starving this CBR port's FIFO.