This defines the minimum gap, in cell time units, that must elapse between the emission of any two consecutive cells for this shaper's channel, which is how the peak cell rate is actually enforced. A larger gap value on this specific shaper enforces a lower peak rate by spacing cells further apart even during a burst, directly capping how fast a bursty source on this port's channel can momentarily transmit regardless of its average rate settings. Setting this gap to 1, the minimum, on a shaper would allow back-to-back cell emission with no enforced spacing, effectively letting that channel burst at line rate up to whatever the traffic shaper's credit allows.