ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) is a new technology recently chosen by the ITU-T standard for broadband networks. Being a powerful and yet complex technology, there has been a number of excellent tutorial articles to deal with the technical issues surrounding ATM. The technology not only presents great potential for engineering research, but it also presents very challenging planning issues. This article review some of those issues, in particular those related to switch and network design, synthesis, survivability, routing and multicasting.