This read-only counter reports the number of packets forwarded over the current active path of this LSP, subject to the same several-minutes reporting delay tied to the MPLS statistics gathering interval as csMplsLspOctets, and it likewise will not increment if that statistics gathering is disabled. It gives an administrator a packet-count view of tunnel utilization to complement the byte-count view from csMplsLspOctets, useful for spotting small-packet-heavy traffic patterns like VoIP. A ratio of csMplsLspOctets to csMplsLspPackets that is unusually low would indicate the tunnel is mostly carrying small packets, consistent with voice or control traffic rather than bulk data.