This document describes a study of the characteristics of recorded WWWtraffic. Several parameters of the traffic are investigated, The results are used to investigate a scenario where ATM is used as the underlying transport mechanism. Problems with the deployment of ATM in the approach taken are considered and suggestions for improvements are made. The high variability of the traffic implies that a fixed allocation of bandwidth between the mean and peak rate is an infeasible way to achieve a reasonable utilization of the system, since this results in tremendous buffering demands. This calls for a different view on the way to study the system under consideration. Different properties of the traffic must be taken care of by different methods. Variations over longer time-scales are dealt with by means of capacity allocation and fluctuations with shorter duration are buffered. This realistic way of looking at the system might also put different tasks, such as traffic modelling, in a new light. For instance, does a model that is to be used for buffer dimensioning have to capture traffic behavior on time-scales that are longer than reasonably can be buffered anyway?