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Reducing connection time while drilling has been a critical task in any drilling operation to reduce both the rig costs and the risks of wellbore instability. One way of reducing the connection time is to decrease the survey times. This paper shows a novel way to accomplish this by using a two-fold approach: an enhanced bottom-hole assembly (BHA) start-up procedure and secondly, a modified algorithm on the mud-pulse telemetry (MPT) uplink decoding software. The enhanced measurement-while-drilling (MWD) BHA start-up procedure focuses on various process steps during the flow-off and flow-on phases. Start-up is, historically, a sequential process. The enhanced start-up procedure uses parallelized discovery of components (nodes) in the BHA, accelerated directional survey calculation, and dynamic rather than static timing of handshaking between nodes. The MPT uplink (the communication of downhole information to surface) decoding improvement focuses on identifying delays in the signal processing chain. The detection of the MPT uplink synchronization sequence with an enhanced correlation approach shows the biggest potential in delay reduction. The latest fleet of MWD BHAs contain an implementation of the new approach, successfully deployed for multiple customer wells in the US, Saudi Arabia, China and Mexico. These wells cover multiple well types, e.g. unconventional, hard rock and high-temperature. In total, deployment of BHAs containing the new approach in over 125 wells achieved an average of 25% reduction in survey times. These deployments have not shown compromised survey quality or decoding capabilities. Rather, the robustness of the synchronization sequence permits, in some cases, going on-bottom and drilling before synchronizing the uplink. Specifically, this has given customers the potential to drill miles-a-day wells more frequently. An additional advantage of the reduced latency in the MPT uplink is that all MWD or logging-while-drilling (LWD) data is available earlier rather than later, thus allowing more timely decisions and in the end reducing risk.