A novel cell-level FEC (forward error correction) scheme at SSCS of AAL type 5 for error-free data transmission services in ATM networks is proposed and evaluated. In the proposed cell-level FEC scheme, both the length of user data (e. g. , IP packet) and attached redundant data can be modified based on sender's local decision without any end-to-end parameter re-negotiation procedure. The writing and reading order regarding an interleave matrix for cell-level FEC algorithm are the same, in order to perform pipelining data transmission. The prototype implementation with software processing achieves few Mbps end-to-end throughput. The end-to-end data transmission latency and the amount of retransmission packets due to packet error at the receiver entity are evaluated by computer simulation with correlated cell dropping process. Simulation results show that the benefits of cell-level FEC scheme for the error-free data transmission services, i. e. , by use of cell-level FEC scheme, the amount of retransmitted packets can be reduced, even if the average latency for end-to-end data transmission increases slightly.