This counts uplink packets the gateway dropped because a hotlining ACL denied them; hotlining is the mechanism carriers use to redirect a suspended or flagged subscriber into a restricted state, such as a 'please pay your bill' walled garden. Because a hotlined subscriber's device still tries to reach the open internet, this counter climbing for a given session confirms the subscriber is being properly quarantined rather than experiencing an unrelated network fault when they complain the internet doesn't work. A suspended subscriber's device retrying a VPN connection every few seconds would increment this counter with each blocked attempt instead of ever reaching the internet.