Without getting into a religious debate, I need some consensus for a

Jon Stanley said: problem

that I am having regarding the definition of a burstable circuit.

In my view of the world, a burstable circuit is defined as one where the customer can send us as much data as they would like (for example, an entire DS3's worth on a consistent basis), and we would bill them for usage above the contracted amount via some method (we use 90th percentile reporting)

In someone else's view inside the company, the customer should be prohibited from sending above the contracted rate for any extended period of time by policing at the ATM layer. Both views are viable, but I believe (nearly religously) that the former view is correct.

At Ebone, 'burstable' is equivalent to your first definition. The assumption is that more bandwidth is available, and can be used by the customer, but at a premium rate. Of course, the premium rate is charged to discourage customers from continuously overstepping their committed bandwidth numbers. It effects a similar control over network utilisation as your colleague's definition, but it also affords the customer more flexibility and generates additional revenues. The latter definition would be something that I would more closely associate with frame relay services. I.e., rates above the CIR are available but not guaranteed. To artificially rate-limit a customer's bandwidth is a disservice to them, even if it does make provisioning slightly more deterministic. - C