[1] The integer parameter m is referred to as the guard band of the error burst.
The Gilbert–Elliott model is a simple channel model introduced by Edgar Gilbert[2] and E. O. Elliott [3] that is widely used for describing burst error patterns in transmission channels and enables simulations of the digital error performance of communications links.
It is based on a Markov chain with two states G (for good or gap) and B (for bad or burst).
Gilbert provided equations for deriving the other three parameters (G and B state transition probabilities and h) from a given success/failure sequence.
In his example, the sequence was too short to correctly find h (a negative probability was found) and so Gilbert assumed that h = 0.5.