  The paper begins with a discussion of current trends in networking and a
historical reviews of past networking technologies some of which failed. This
leads us to the discussion about what it takes for a new technology to succeed
and what challenges we face in making the current dream of a seamless
world-wide high-speed ATM network a reality.
  Issues in using ATM cells for very high speed applications are presented.
Ensuring that the users benefit from ATM networks involves several other
related disciplines. These are reviewed.
