Abstract: A process and apparatus for detecting the occurrence of an event threshold and performing some type of action in response to the detection. The disclosed use of the invention is for managing communication connections in a network. An event counter, a sliding event threshold counter and a sliding interval counter are initialized to prescribed initial states at the start of counter management. At the expiration of an interval specified by the contents of the sliding interval counter, the sliding interval counter is incremented by an offset time value, and the sliding event threshold counter is updated by the sum of an offset event value and the event counter. The event counter is incremented on each occurrence of an event to be counted.