Abstract: A frame based traffic policing system that determines if incoming data cells are conforming or non-conforming according to the a traffic contract. The frame based traffic policing system first detects a cell at the beginning or end of a frame and determines if the frame conforms with a traffic contract. If the cell does not exceed the parameters of the traffic contract, then the frame based traffic policing system deems the cell as conforming. If the cell was the first cell of a frame, then frame based traffic policing system treats all the remaining cells in the frame as conforming or non-conforming depending upon if the first data cell was conforming or non-conforming. If the cell was the last cell of a frame, then frame based traffic policing system treats all the cells of the following frame as conforming or non-conforming depending upon if the last cell of a previous frame was conforming or non-conforming.