The paper presents a distributed multi-agent system designed to give flexible, scaleable, robust and efficient connection management of WATM networks. The presented system includes distributed software entities (i.e., agents) that provide a virtual environment for deploying management and control operations, and generic interfaces between agents complying with the programmable network interfaces specified in the emerging P1520 reference model. Given that conventional ATM signaling protocols can not support the functionality offered by the discussed system, the paper proposes and describes an open signaling protocol for efficiently and effectively supporting host mobility in a WATM network.