Do objects created by urllib2.urlopen() represent a constant connection?

Question

In the following code, is the connection to the remote server held open until close() is called or is it recreated every time read() is called? In the following code I do see a new network communication happens every time read() is called, rather than the remote file being buffered as soon as urlopen() is called.

import urllib2

handle = urllib2.urlopen('http://download.thinkbroadband.com/5MB.zip')
while True:
    buff = handle.read(64*1024) # Is a new connection to the server created here?
    if len(x) == 0:
        break
handle.close()

Answer 1

Try running wireshark or fiddler and look at port 80 with nothing else running. Run your program and see what traffic you get. Should answer your question.