How fast is SurfShark in Brisbane?

A few days ago I tested how fast the SurfShark VPN servers located in Sydney, today I will test the SurfShark VPN servers’ performance in Brisbane, QLD, Australia. Same as last time, if you are:

• considering to purchase SurfShark VPN or comparing it with other VPNs, or
• Brisbane/QLD is your primary VPN destination,
• you are a SurfShark user and want to optimize the VPN connection speed

you shall be interested in this article.

Brisbane VPN Speed Test Setup

The network test setup and method are the same as the last test (detailed specifications). In short, I am testing the SurfShark VPN via NBN 250/20 speed plan.

Different from the last test to the SurfShark Sydney VPN servers, the Brisbane servers are a bit “remote” (I am living in Sydney) - about 1000km away. This physical distance adds a bit of latency (ping value) in the test.

Light travels at 300,000km per second, it takes at least 3.3ms for a internet packet to travel one way from Sydney to Brisbane, and 6.6ms two-ways. Still, this magnitude of increase in latency is intangible in the daily use cases.

VPN Speed Test Method

Same VPN speed test procedure as last time, I will run Ookla speedtest to SurfShark four types of VPN connection protocols:

1. IKEv2
2. OpenVPN(TCP)
3. OpenVPN(UDP)
4. WireGuard

Test Results, Comparison and Conclusion

After running 3 x 4 = 12 times speedtest, hereby below the Brisbane SurfShark VPN server speed results:

Compare to Sydney results below, the VPN speed drops due to 1000km distance seems to be insignificant, latency value increases ~10 ms as expected:

Screenshots of the VPN speedtest results:

IKEv2
OpenVPN(TCP) OpenVPN(UDP) WireGuard

Is SurfShark Fast in Brisbane?

Yes, it’s as fast as in Sydney.

50Mbps is well enough to stream Netflix 4k smoothly so it’s safe to say 200Mbps SurfShark speed in Brisbane is fast enough for the most internet users.

For the optimum VPN connection speed, it’s suggested to manually select the connection mode in IKEv2 or WireGuard mode.

From the Brisbane and Sydney SurfShark speed results, I guess the throughput of SursShark’s VPN server is above 210Mbps, however due to the limit of my NBN plan, I could not obtain the maximum value of them (even if I upgrade to 1000Mbps NBN, its typical evening speed is ~300Mbps, so it doesn’t give confidence in results).

Upcoming test

I am interested to know what will be the speed test results for VPN servers in Victoria and Western Australia. I will test those soon.

After that, I will work on speed consistency, unblocking capabilities, safety features and also extend the test to other VPN brands.

I hope this article helps you. Do not hesitate to left comments if you have anything in mind. Happy to discuss.

For more SurfShark VPN tests, please click the “SurfShark” tag; for more performance tests to Brisbane local servers, please click the “Brisbane” tag, below the content of the post.

Peace.