How to make an Echo server with Bash?
If you use ncat instead of nc your command line works fine with multiple connections but (as you pointed out) without -p.
ncat -l 2000 -k -c 'xargs -n1 echo'
ncat is available at http://nmap.org/ncat/.
P.S. with the original the Hobbit's netcat (nc) the -c flag is not supported.
Update: -k (--keep-open) is now required to handle multiple connections.
Here are some examples. ncat simple services
TCP echo server
ncat -l 2000 --keep-open --exec "/bin/cat"
UDP echo server
ncat -l 2000 --keep-open --udp --exec "/bin/cat"