This counter tallies how many inbound packets NBAR has classified as belonging to a specific protocol on a monitored interface, a running total since the counter was last reset or the device rebooted. It is the core metric an admin uses to see which applications are actually consuming inbound bandwidth on a link, for example spotting that an unsanctioned peer-to-peer protocol is generating disproportionate traffic. A value climbing rapidly for a protocol like 'bittorrent' while business-critical protocols show comparatively flat counts would be a clear signal to investigate or apply QoS policy.