A gauge, not a monotonically increasing counter, of how many TCP connections are currently in the ESTABLISHED or CLOSE-WAIT state on this device's own stack. Because it's a live gauge rather than a cumulative counter, this is what an admin actually watches in real time to see current load on the gateway's own TCP-terminated services, and a value stuck unusually high, especially many stuck in CLOSE-WAIT, suggests a local application is failing to close its half of connections. Example: tcpCurrEstab holding steady at a much higher number than usual, with most of the excess in CLOSE-WAIT, points to a management-plane process leaking connections rather than a genuine traffic increase.