What it actually means
FTTC is a hybrid. The hard, fast bit of the journey, from the exchange to the green cabinet on your street, runs on fibre optic. The last stretch, from that cabinet to the box on your wall, runs on the same copper phone line that was put in the ground decades ago. That copper section is what makes FTTC the way it is.
Copper weakens the signal the further it travels, so a house 100 metres from the cabinet will get a much faster line than a house 800 metres away. Two neighbours on different sides of a road can see noticeably different speeds. Top speeds are usually around 80 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up, and that is a best case. FTTC is often badged as superfast broadband, which it was when it launched, though full fibre FTTP has now overtaken it. Openreach is gradually retiring FTTC as fibre reaches more streets.
At home
What this looks like in the house
FTTC is the line that feels fine on a quiet Tuesday afternoon and falls over at 7pm on a Sunday. One person on a 4K stream, a teenager on Xbox, and a smart doorbell pinging notifications is enough to make the whole household feel sluggish. Upload speeds are the real giveaway. Try sending a school project to OneDrive over FTTC and you have time to make a cup of tea before it finishes.
In business
What this looks like at work
For a business, FTTC is the line that quietly costs you money. A cloud accounting upload that takes ten minutes instead of one, a card machine that drops out during a busy lunch, a video call that pixelates while you are trying to win a contract. None of it is catastrophic on its own. Add it up across a year and you have lost real hours, and at least one client who decided you looked unprofessional on screen.