Committed information rate (CIR)

Frame relay connections are often given a committed information rate (CIR) and an allowance of burstable bandwidth known as the extended information rate (EIR). The provider guarantees that the connection will always support the CIR rate, and sometimes the EIR rate should there be adequate bandwidth. Frames that are sent in excess of the CIR are marked as discard eligible (DE) which means they can be dropped should congestion occur within the frame relay network. Frames sent in excess of the EIR are dropped immediately