So I leaned something new today.
When templates reference themselves (e.g. using this) they resolve twice.
Going to have to think of a new approach.
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Template entities resolve twice. Because of availability, we update when the state updates, then we check the availability and resolve the state again. This causes this.state to increment twice if youāre using it as a counter.
IIRC, if you omit availability, it should only resolve once but I could be wrong on that. Itās been a while since Iāve looked at that portion of the code. I do know itās unavoidable unless the system is overhauled, which Iām not willing to do.
So increment by 0.5 then 
Thereās still the missing counts too though.
trigger based template entities avoid this all together, or at least they should. FYI.
Itās only affected by state based template entities because each template is asyncronous, leading to order of operation issues when things are updated at the same time.
Trigger based template entities only update with the trigger and check availability first, then state, then all the rest (in any order).
thank you @petro and @tom_l ; first attempt will be with the path with the least effort so Iāll give it a try at adding just 0.5
Iāll keep you aligned with the resultsā¦
A trigger based template would be easier if youāre already using yaml 
template:
- triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id: input_text.zyxel
sensor:
- name: "B7 Count"
unique_id: "B7_count"
state: >
{% if this is defined %}
{% if 'B7' in trigger.to_state.state %}
{{ this.state|int(0) + 1 }}
{% else %}
{{ this.state|int(0) }}
{% endif %}
{% else %}
0
{% endif %}
Just understand that trigger based template entities restore state on restart. So this should always count up, forever.
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template:
- triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id: input_text.zyxel
That was Hellis81ās.
template:
- triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id: sensor.zyxel_cellular_intf_current_band
sensor:
- name: "B7 Count"
unique_id: "B7_count"
state: >
{% if this is defined %}
{% if 'B7' in trigger.to_state.state %}
{{ this.state|int(0) + 1 }}
{% else %}
{{ this.state|int(0) }}
{% endif %}
{% else %}
0
{% endif %}
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Working for me 
Keep in mind, with input texts, you need to click enter on your keyboard to enter the state.
Tom meant you used the wrong entity ID in the code.
It should not be input_text for OP.
The input text code was just mine for testing, as you also did.
But for OP the code should be the sensorā¦
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hi @tom_l the try with 0.5 increment didnāt worked
- name: "B7 Count"
unique_id: "B7_count"
state: >
{% if this is defined %}
{% if 'B7' in states('sensor.zyxel_cellular_intf_current_band') %}
{{ this.state|int(0) + 0.5 }}
{% else %}
{{ this.state|int(0) }}
{% endif %}
{% else %}
0
{% endif %}
- name: "B1 Count"
unique_id: "B1_count"
state: >
{% if this is defined %}
{% if 'B1' in states('sensor.zyxel_cellular_intf_current_band') %}
{{ this.state|int(0) + 0.5 }}
{% else %}
{{ this.state|int(0) }}
{% endif %}
{% else %}
0
{% endif %}
...
now I get even less sensors incremented and the max is the value 0.5
Iāll give a try to @petro suggestion at using trigger based template and Iāll report back.
in the meanwhile thank you all for your help and time, I really appreciate it!
I was joking, you should definitely use the triggered template sensor.
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After a week of testing I can confirm that the triggered template sensor itās working as a charm! thank you to all that contributed and of course to @petro and @tom_l for having guided me to the solution.
All the best!
Interesting thread - in a number of ways.
I know this has been solved, but when I read the original post from @qm28jSLtTnkW, I thought an automation would be the way to go instead of creating separate templates. For one thing, maybe you would want to know when thereās a band that doesnāt have a template sensor defined.
One question, if the state changes from B7,B1,B3 to (say) B7,B1,B3,B4 i.e. only B4 was added, would you increment just that one or all of them?
Does sensor.zyxel_cellular_intf_current_band get updated periodically or only when a band is added or removed?
Anyway, I was curious so did it as an automation. Pros and cons over the template approach?
alias: Test increment bands
description: ""
triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id:
- input_text.zyxel_band
conditions: []
actions:
- variables:
bands: "{{ states(trigger.entity_id) }}"
- repeat:
for_each: "{{ bands.split(',') }}"
sequence:
- variables:
this_band: "{{ repeat.item|trim }}"
counter_entity: counter.zyxl_band_{{ this_band }}
- if:
- condition: template
value_template: "{{ states(counter_entity) != 'unknown' }}"
then:
- action: counter.increment
metadata: {}
data: {}
target:
entity_id: "{{ counter_entity }}"
else:
- action: persistent_notification.create
metadata: {}
data:
message: >-
Received band update of "{{ this_band }}" in "{{ bands }}",
but counter "{{ counter_entity }}" does not exist.
mode: queued
The difference is that you need to pre set up the counter with a paired automation where the template entities are a single template section with mutiple sensors. Everything in 1 place requiring no setup from the UI before hand. In fact, if you turn this into a single template entity with band names as the attributes, you can have n number of counters with a single template entity. No additional setup.