A new multilayer error control technique is presented and analyzed. As the cell travels the inter-network enroute to the destination ATM user node interface (UNI), the CRC parity is checked and the cell is dropped or passed to the next ATM hop accordingly. A standard go-back-N ARQ technique is applied end to end while a lost-cell concealment technique cooperates below as a forward error correction mechanism that also operates end to end. The error detection and correction techniques above are applied to connectionless oriented traffic. The hierarchy of the error control technique above is presented and the end-to-end user performance in terms of net throughput and reliability is analyzed. We investigate the interactive effects of the channel and ATM signalling parameters on the system performance, with particular emphasis on the design of the error control scheme.