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So little is being used only because so much of it was built.

Fiber was a fad. Everybody jumped onto the fad and built lots and lots and lots of fiber networks that nobody needed (but it made for a great "mission statement" and revved up the prices of stocks for companies laying all of that fiber, for a while).

Now the fad is over. The late-comers might still think that fiber is valuable, but they'd be dead wrong. Sooner or later everyone will realize that fiber is essentially worthless.

So little fiber is being used because our homes are connected with copper.

"The last Mile" is copper. That phrase ("The last Mile") is well known in the industry, and to the FCC. If you do a google search on that phrase, you will be astounded at the American governmental ineptitde that keeps the world from amazing technology.

The local phone Fiants own the copper and do whatever it takes to prevent independants from running fiber to your home. They make all of their money on the last mile, the bottleneck. The FCC helps them.

If fiber was laid to your home, internet would be practially free, along with normal phone, long distance, and cable TV (on fiber). You could tell your blender (over the net) to start mashing those bananas 5 minutes before you get there. You could have a live shot of video cams in your own house, to see if the babysitter was paying more atention to her boyfriend than your kids. You could plug your car in, and have a guy in Japan tell you that you need a new Oxygen sensor.

America accounts for about half the worlds bandwidth, even with copper wire. With fiber to your home, our bandwidth consumption would tripple in a year. Yet the last mile remains copper, and will until the local phone companies are forced to do it.

The phone companies would lose their collective butts if our homes were connected by fiber. Therefore, you have none, and the fiber world collapsed.