What is a key feature of UDP?

What is a key feature of UDP?

• A. It is connectionless and allows for faster data transmission but is less reliable.
• B. It guarantees in-order delivery.
• C. It provides congestion control.
• D. It uses a reliable stream.

Answer: (A)

UDP is designed to be connectionless, meaning it sends datagrams without establishing a session or maintaining state about a conversation. This eliminates the overhead of handshakes and reliability mechanisms, letting data be transmitted with very low latency. But there’s no built-in guarantee that packets will arrive, arrive in order, or be free of duplicates. As a result, UDP is considered unreliable compared to TCP, which provides delivery guarantees, in-order delivery, and congestion control. This trade-off—faster transmission with minimal overhead at the expense of reliability—is what makes UDP suitable for time-sensitive applications like real-time audio/video, online gaming, or simple query-response services where occasional loss is acceptable.

UDP is designed to be connectionless, meaning it sends datagrams without establishing a session or maintaining state about a conversation. This eliminates the overhead of handshakes and reliability mechanisms, letting data be transmitted with very low latency. But there’s no built-in guarantee that packets will arrive, arrive in order, or be free of duplicates. As a result, UDP is considered unreliable compared to TCP, which provides delivery guarantees, in-order delivery, and congestion control. This trade-off—faster transmission with minimal overhead at the expense of reliability—is what makes UDP suitable for time-sensitive applications like real-time audio/video, online gaming, or simple query-response services where occasional loss is acceptable.