[btgeekboy]

The connection itself wouldn't get slower, but the outer mechanism using that connection may retry, and the retry may be successful. The appearance to the user is one of slowness.

For example, one of the symptoms of networking packet is slowness. Assume 2% of packets are lost. A packet is lost, the receiver re-requests it, and the retry has a 98% chance of being successful. End result: the transmission completes, but at a slower pace.