Upon customer request we implemented a UDP-based application protocol on a wireless network that had lots of low coverage areas. We thought they were crazy but

Upon customer request we implemented a UDP-based application protocol on a wireless network that had lots of low coverage areas. We thought they were crazy but it turned out that the overhead of keeping a TCP connection in an area of poor coverage can be overwhelming. The app retried a few times (and of course 802.11 retries on it's own), when responses didn't arrive but in the end the user was the real retry mechanism. To our surprise (not the customer's) everyone was happy in the end. Packet ordering wasn't an issue in our app, though, so I'm not sure what my point is other than sometimes UDP is reliable enough.