How can my VPN connection be faster than my standard connection?

Solution 1:

This was to do with the OpenVPN server's compression feature, meaning that more data can be sent at once.

This, therefore, meant the connection was faster. To confirm this, I disabled the compression feature and had this speed:

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...whereas with compression enabled, consequently had this speed:

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It seems that had I used a standard VPN other than OpenVPN I wouldn't have seen this significant speed burst.