Beginning 1995, a regional ATM network extending over a 65 km diameterand more than 150 km fiber optic cable was built and operated by a groupfrom the scientific community of the state of Bremen. Also, one completeLAN serving 500 users and some parts of LANs were rebuilt using ATMLAN-E as the base technology. This platform also served specificprojects with ATM connectivity to locations in Europe and even Canada.The 155 MBit/s network connects about 30 "participants" ranging from a single workstation with an ATM-NIC in a small firm to complete IP networks including a university campus. As opposed to other networks, ATM signalling was used extensively from the beginning. External connectivity is by access to the (IP-) science network "B-WiN" and ATM network of Deutsche Telekom at 34 MBit/s each.Thus, the network serves as a backbone for utility Internet access formost of the regional science and educational institutions as well as aplatform for specific R&D projects such as the G7 project SPOCK whichdeals with distributed engineering in the aerospace industry, and theACTS project EIES which is to set up a trial communications servicebetween European harbours.Some observations - as of autumn 1997 - are:- Building an ATM LAN-E based local area network with routers, ATM- andEthernet-switches from a single vendor is -almost- a plug-and-playoperation today, given some experience in IP-network operation.- Under these constraints and given a little experience in ATM, LAN-Eeven proves useful in extending an emulated LAN to another city, on thefly.- It is somewhat harder to integrate workstations and ATM-NICs ofdifferent flavours into these emulated LANs as clients.- Integration of ATM equipment of a different vendor into the networkremains to be a major undertaking.- No native ATM "killer"-application has emerged on the desktop.Contrary to the beliefs of some in 1995, LAN-E seems to be simple enoughto be stable, useful and performing in real world user- and operationalenvironments. Maybe LAN-E and its successors are the killer apps of ATM- if interoperability problems are solved.