Several congestion control methods for asynchronous transfer mode (ATM,) networks that support multimedia traffic by providing different guaranteed quality for each class of traffic are discussed. The two categories of congestion control methods presented are preventive congestive control and reactive congestive control. Preventive congestion control takes any action necessary to prevent congestion Reactive congestion control is responsible for any necessary action to recover from a congested situation, A summary of a proposed multilevel control scheme is also presented. >