Is there a publicly available server connection iOS class that retains a connection between the device and a server once it has been authenticated?
An NSURLConnection instance is released once the connection is completed, and it’s a timely process to re-authenticate every time.
NSURLConnection is intended for a single request, if you want to do multiple requests you’ll likely have to go to a lower level. You could look at the Setting Up Socket Streams section of the Streams Programming Guide, or if you don’t mind going with Core Foundation instead of Cocoa you could check out the CFNetwork Programming Guide.
Or, if all else fails, you could go with the standard BSD sockets you may be familiar with from C.