Which statement about QUIC is true regarding its design goals?

• A. It relies on TCP's slow start and congestion control without modification
• B. It uses a separate handshake for each stream
• C. It is built on top of UDP with no encryption
• D. It is a transport protocol over UDP with built-in encryption, multiplexing streams, and faster connection establishment

Answer: (D)

QUIC is designed to run on top of UDP and to bring together security, speed, and flexible data transfer within a single connection. It includes encryption by default, uses multiple streams multiplexed over one connection, and aims to establish that connection with as little delay as possible.

Because it sits over UDP, QUIC isn’t tied to TCP’s behavior. It implements its own congestion control and reliability mechanisms rather than reusing TCP’s slow-start approach, which helps reduce startup latency and improves performance for changing networks. The handshake is for the entire connection, not for each stream, so streams can be opened and used without a separate, per-stream handshake. The built-in encryption, integrated via TLS 1.3, means that QUIC encrypts most of its headers and data, providing security by default rather than as an afterthought.

The combination of a UDP foundation, built-in encryption, multiplexed streams, and a faster, more integrated connection establishment is what makes this statement true.