cmNetPortPcpDEEncIndex is a read-only integer (1-8) uniquely identifying a row in the network port's PCP drop-eligible encoding table, which supports up to eight encoding rules (compared to the access port's simpler 3-row pair table). An administrator uses this index to configure or reference a specific priority-to-PCP encoding rule on the network-facing side. For example, a network port needing to encode all eight 802.1p priority levels individually would populate rows indexed 1 through 8 in this table.