This read-only counter tracks how many times the state machine has moved from CONNECTING to AUTHENTICATING because the supplicant sent its EAP-Response/Identity message, marking the point where real credential exchange begins. An administrator compares this to the enters-connecting counter to see what fraction of connection attempts actually progress to sending an identity. For example, if enters-connecting is high but this counter stays low, the admin knows most attempts never even get as far as supplying a username.