Bandwidth limit with Plex

Sounds like your remote access setup might be working flawlessly, pushing your friends to an indirect/relayed connection.

You should be able to confirm this on the now-playing tile of the server dashboard (streams showing as indirect or remote).

Exemplary screenshot from the "now playing" section
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200871837-status-and-dashboard/

If this is indeed the issue, you might want to troubleshoot your remote access setup