QUIC, a rapidly evolving protocol, has gained prominence with its standardization and increased adoption as HTTP/3 on the World Wide Web. Originating from Google in 2014, QUIC has seen significant changes in transitioning from Google QUIC (gQUIC) to an IETF standard in 2021. Understanding the performance of the current version of QUIC in comparison to its predecessors is crucial given its evolution and widespread adoption.

High bandwidth-delay product (BDP) networks present many performance challenges. We present the design, implementation, and evaluation of UDT+FEC, a software system that provides high throughput, low latency, and low-variance latency on wide-area networks (WAN), especially for large data transfers. Using 2D-XOR forward error correction (FEC), implemented as an extension of the UDP-based Data Transfer (UDT) system, we show that it is possible to match the throughput and latency of other state-of-the-art tools, but also provide the added property of lower variance in the interarrival times of messages at the receiver. With a variety of macro- and micro-benchmarks, we quantify the relative advantages of UDT+FEC, when compared to using GridFTP combined with CUBIC, BBR, and parallel streams.We find that UDT+FEC has substantially lower variance in the latency of message arrivals (approximated by message interarrival times, for one-way transmissions) when compared to different combinations of CUBIC, BBR, and parallel streams.