b r an update process gets priority over replenishment in this case the replenish process is postponed since update and replenishment do not take place at the same time the adder can be shared between the two processes in this process the control values are written into the control parameter indication portions table 4 shows the typical rates for this optionally it may be possible to write a value to the counter field also for debugging processes this process get the least priority one issue which arises in the embodiment discussed above is how policing is carried out in the case that it is desired to perform different policing actions for different ones of the flows it would be possible to store action bits for each of the flows indicating which flows are to be given which policing action s such that when a packet is found to be loosely conforming or non conforming the action bits for flow control are checked however this solution significantly increases the memory requirements of the system a preferred solution is for the table 1 to be partitioned into ranges in the vertical direction and for enough programmable action bits to be provided to store different policing actions for each of the ranges this means that the user is limited to applying.