Are you downloading from several mirrors at the same time? In that case it could be faster because the individual mirrors have a lower bandwidth than you have.
Wonder if google would do something like this, but I would guess they download everything from the same server local to you, so I don't think it should have any effect really.
Well yeah, that's why you would put some cloud experts on the project besides the game devs if you're doing things like this. It's not just game developers working on the game.
Doesn't even have to be people feom the Azure team. Microsoft has plenty of resources to teach someone to be a cloud expert in other branches, they even offer certifications for outside people, surely they can manage a few of their own.