Great review!! I am a mac user that is scheduled for an fios install the 2nd week of March. We have a mixed home network with mac’s and windows machines. Verizon has already been by to discuss the curb to house wiring options. I was not home as we live in townhomes, I must discuss this with my neighbors. Is there any chance the ONT could be installed inside as I am putting a board on my wall for the battery backup? I must be lucky because my Comcast cable speeds are around 8000 down and 650 up but I do experience the network congestion at prime times. I know fiber is the future and I am looking forward to the TV service as well because unlike the internet my TV signal is very poor. I use my isight camera frequently and would like more speed and bandwidth. Do you know anything about Verizons wiring? We have 3 computers on the ground floor next to the garage and 1 in an office on the 3rd floor. I ordered wiring for the 3rd floor computer (we use linksys wiring over power lines now –works pretty well) but I want an ethernet connection in that room. I have to make a decision on where to put the router. I wonder if I should use it on the ground floor or put it in the garage, a more centrally placed location. Since any additional connections must start from the router I am wondering about the central garage location. I have never had the router far from at least 1 machine (using linksys WRT54G ) but i am thinking of having a centrally located router and using switches in the family room which has 3 computers. Sorry to ramble but if you have any feedback it would be appreciated. again thanks for assuring a high level of service and dispelling some of the myths about networking macs. Mark

I’m curious if you’ve experieced your IP changing many times a day with the FIOS, which is a complaint I’ve read about. If so, does your video conferencing system get all confused when the IP changes? I’ve just orderd FIOS, and I’m now concerned that it’ll affect the use of my iSight/iChat with my daughter off at college.

Thanks in advance.

excellent, thorough review. i found your speed tests interesting having just switched over from dsl to fios last week and checking speeds from the west coast (socal) to various servers across the country.

i’m curious about the latency you discussed. i also run mac and windows and i have the opposite problem. my mac continually gets close to 15MB down but my laptops running xp only get ~6-7MB down. Both systems get ~1.7MB up consistently. I checked the latency and get 85ms which based on your results is very high, but it’s the same for both xp and osx.

i found your review searching for info regarding fios speed tests and to see if there downloads actually help speed up the computer or are just full of marketing crap. i downloaded the broadband tuner for the mac but didn’t install it because the speed is fine there despite the high latency.

any ideas as to what could be slowing down the xp machines? the verizon techs downloaded the verizon applications to the mac, but i really don’t want to install them on xp because i’m like you and feel it’s all marketing gimmics.

thanks,
erik

g,
If your speed test is ok. I guess that is a good thing. You can not improve your latency, only Verizon can do that. I expect that will happen as they are improving as an ISP and moving over to MCI bigger faster pipes. As FiOS grows so will the core.

I am not too surprised as to the Intel Mac not being very much faster on your Internet connection as the speed of the machine helps, but is not the major factor. If you installed the broadband tuner, that is the best you can do right now as the broadband tuner is a packet-shaper to compensate for the latency you seem to have.

Stephen Antonucci
ReelSmart.com

Christopher,
Thanks for sharing your experience. I would hope that Verizon Tech Support learns form its mistakes. Manual set-up for email is a better idea moving forward or better yet using a Gmail account instead as it does not lock you into the ISP and archives everything in its huge storage. If you are interested let me know and I would be happy to send you an invite to Gmail if you want.
And don’t worry, when the tech support gets “nailed” by the next worm and virus (all he needs to do is visit a bad website using IE) and he loses his data, you can look down on him!
Stephen Antonucci
ReelSmart.com

Excellent work! I just got my FIOS installed in Westchester. I’m interested in ‘bridging’ my WiFi by supplementing the Verizon wireless router with my Apple Airport Extreme. Do you know if this is possible?

Excellent. Thanks so much Stephen.

T

Bob,
In the TCP/IP section of built-in Ethernet you will find DHCP in the pull-down. Good luck with your FiOS install.
Stephen

Bob,
The reason I think you do not see DHCP in TCP/IP is probably due to you having “Connect using PPPoE” under the PPPoE tab. When you connect FiOS or DSL you usually want to run PPPoE on the router, not your computer. One reason is running PPPoE on the computer can be problematic with some DSL connections and it is better run on the router than software. Basically never let the ISP install PPPoE client on your machine if you can run it on a router. Especially if you want to share the connection with other computers. And the router will run NAT by using one public IP (usually dynamic) and handing out private IP addresses via DHCP. If you turn off PPPoE in your Built-in Ethernet -> PPPoE you will probably see the DHCP choice in TCP/IP drop-down. Hope this helps.
Stephen Antonucci

I got my FiOS installed yesterday. I noticed that the battery backup has 12V output and I plan to wire it to my SunRocket VOIP box (which luckily requires exactly 12V). This should make my VOIP work even during power outages!!!

Bob,
Verizon has announced a speed update for FiOS on the East Coast Tri-State area. They are now selling 10MB/2MB, 20MB/2MB in place of the old 5MB/2MB and 15MB/2MB service at the same price for new installs. They will update existing customers in June.

As far as Mail goes I always suggest to people they use a third party mail that is separate from their ISP such as GMail or YahooMail. Too many people get caught up and locked into an ISP due to email accounts. How many people do you know still using AOL just for their email address?

Anyway, I do not use Apple Mail much and prefer webmail. Not that Apple Mail is bad. But if you check out the VZ Central Fios website there probably is a good tutorial for setting up Mail (if not Outlook settings are not that different really). What you will find is when using pop3 or imapi mail clients like Apple Mail or Outlook are a pain on a laptop when traveling as many hotspots and networks block outgoing mail to stop spam. Webmail is better while on the road for this reason.

If you lose power and go to battery on FiOS your router will be down anyway. As it provides connectivity and DHCP for most users setups they would be down anyway. Not to mention desktop computers or laptops with limited battery power.

John,

Ping time is a big issue for gaming, VoIP, and video conferencing. In my FiOS installation the ping times were better than my old cable modem. I can not tell you if you will have the same luck. With Verizon now using the big pipes from MCI (they bought MCI) I bet peering and Internet coennection will improve over their entire network. So chances are you would be fine. Also Verizon seems to be going after “gamers” in a big way, even buying some online gaming companies.

James,
Verizon will be offering TV here in NJ probably by the end of the year. The legislature here just voted yes to a state-wide video franchise, now we are waiting for the governors signature. I will be happy to have a choice.

I have found that neither the cable companies, nor Verizon, or even consumers themselves ever “secure” their routers correctly. Almost all of them come unsecured in the box when you get them. It is important in this day and age to secure, especially a wireless home network not only against hackers, but neighbors that will almost certainly connect to your wireless network without ever even knowing it. I for one do not want to be responsible for the browsing a neighbor might do on my IP address!

You should first off change the username and password of the router.

I have a good article on this site that goes thru the security settings on the small home network. see it here.

Jordan,
You need to use Authentication for Verizon Mail. It needs to be setup in all your desired Mail clients. You will find Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, and Entourage all work find with Verizon Mail.

The SMTP settings are:
outgoing.verizon.net
port 25
Authenication: Password
Username: your account@verizon.net
Password: Your Password

You should of selected your Verizon Online user name and password during the account setup portion of your installation.

Try http://netservices.verizon.net/portal/site/msa/index.jsp?problem=ForgotPassword
to get your username and password if you do not know what they are. You can contact Verizon about email at 1-888-483-6381. I got this phone number off the Verizon Central website.

I personally use Gmail, I like not tying my email to my ISP. I have no trouble with attachments.

I WANT FIOS! My cable internet upload sucks. Only 256k available in my area for upload.

Actually,

I’ll save you the trouble.

I just remembered why I use Mac in the first place. I read my Airport Base Station manual and thought it through a bit and before I knew it . . . I was online at blazing speeds. Thanks anyway, your article got me inspired. FIOS is great!

Sincerely,

Michael M

Wow! So much good info. I’m a long-time Verizon DSL user with hard-wire Linksys router, 1 MacG4, 1 Windows pc, 1 mac ibook & 1 mac book. When I talked to a Mac tech at verizon he told me I needed an airport adapter to run the 2 macbooks wireless, and I can keep the G4 and the windows hard-wired to the new verizon router. The 2 macbooks have airport cards, do I have to buy/install something else on these to use them wireless? Thanks – my FIOS install is scheduled for Oct. 9!

Stephen,

My FIOS install went well, except that I should have ordered a higher speed & I wasn’t aware of the various speeds available in our area when I placed the order. Anyways, the Tech wasn’t a real MAC fan, but got everything online in about 10 minutes. I mentioned changing passwords on the router like you suggest, and he said it wasn’t necessary since the router is web encrypted, or something like that. I’ll look at your link again & will probably follow YOUR suggestions anyways. One glitch so far is my daughter’s MacBookPro has something wrong with iTunes not recognizing the network, but I haven’t taken a look at it myself. Now, if I could just get my husband to ditch his PC for a new Mac, our household will be more cohesive.
I’ve Bookmarked your site for future. Thanks again!
~Carol

I recently got FIOS to try out. I’m getting rid of it ASAP.

The guy who came to my house to set up the connection, went right to my mac and installed the account setup.

I’m lucky to use web base mail. HOWEVER…IT DELETED ALL OF MY SAFARI BOOKMARKS. Thousands of bookmarks I and my family uses over the past 3 years, all gone. And why? so Verizon could replace them with a few crappy Verizon bookmarks.

Verizon has lost all my trust. I don’t care if I have to go back to my Time Warner cable modem. It’s always been fast for me (3 computers online, someone on X-Box live, all at the same time, no lag on the computers or X-Box).

So what if it’s faster, Verizon’s got nerve…and I’ve seen complaints over a year old about this. They can’t even fix a year old problem!?

I will be more then happy to Stephen.

After he installed outside, the tech came in and went to my Mac and installed the installer located at https://activatemyfios.verizon.net/, I should have stopped him, but at the time thought nothing of it. He did nothing with the Mac settings, he went right to Safari and went to that web address.

It seemed like it was going to simply set up my account, e-mail, etc. with Verizon. Before my eyes, Safari closes and reopens. All bookmarks gone, replaced with Verizon Bookmarks.

And! After searching online…I’m not the first to lose their Safari bookmarks. This is happened numerous times…stemming as far back as almost a year ago!

You can check out more at this blog I came across:
red-sweater.com/blog/?p=78

I really thought nothing of it. I’ve never had a problem since with computers since I switched from Windows to Mac about 2 years ago. I never created a backup for my bookmark files. (According the the blogger above, the installer script “accidently” makes a backup, but I’ve yet to find it…)

In addition, from readin that blog, people lost all of their mail from the Mail application from this installer as well. I’m really bothered by this as well, as I recently purchased a domain to use the mail application as I’ve had bad experience with webmail. I’m afraid to use my own computer as I feel Verizon’s terrible script writing will erase anything important I use it for.

If anyone could help in anything: getting my bookmarks back, getting rid of the crap Verizon installed on my computer, assuring me the Mail application is safe, I’d be very appreciated.

Verizon’s help has been terrible. I’ve called multiple times, I had people from Verizon telling me “Oh, your bookmarks were left behind with your old ISP” (WOW can you believe that one. I almost screamed at the idiot in disgust) and I was told “that’s not our fault, it’s Apple’s problem” (to which I replied, it’s Apple’s fault you carelessly wrote a script that’s been doing this to people for over a year”. Only when I called and said, I’d like to cancel (which they seemed shocked at, especially since it was just installed in my house no more then 2 hours earlier), did they send a “specialist” to the phone who tried to help. When he couldn’t, he said Verizon would give me an extra month of FIOS free. I scoffed at what they deem as “fixing the problem” and said I didn’t care, I wanted to cancel. He then put me on hold, only to tell me a Mac specialist was going to call up and fix the problem. He called, had me e-mail him a few files, and said he’d get back to me ASAP. He has yet to get back to me….2 days now.

Again, if anyone can help, it would be much appreciated.

Just a note on TV. I wanted the entire Verizon package largely based on your Internet connection review and a need to change my phone service anyway (even though it is now Verizon). I currently have Comcast in Reston, VA and am sick of dealing with them on billing issues, and various other screwups.

So, I called to get pricing for what I wanted, particularly on the FIOS TV service which is available here, but whose package pricing is not well stated on their website. Bottom line is: every TV set in the house has to have a settop box!!! Unless all you want is local TV channels which is ridiculous, and even if you do not get the DVR that allows replays in multiple rooms simultaneously. I don’t want a DVD player-sized box attached to all my TVs (the one on the kitchen table is only a 14″ set for heaven’s sake!), so I will now rethink my entire plan for which I had such high hopes.

Before considering getting the TV service, note that you will be adding a LOT of equipment with its attendant plug space, electricity consumption, and above space requirements!

You are all so right about the cable industry boxing us into these huge set top boxes. It’s frustrating how the TVs get smaller, but the cable boxes get bigger and with clunkier remotes. Verizon saturated us with phone, mail and email ads about FIOS (Anne Arundel County, MD) and it looked like their whole FIOS system was wireless (it’s not). You have to pay extra $$$ for the DVR and a package that lets you watch recorded programs from that DVR on any TV in the house. We were fed up with Comcast and after being satisfied with Verizon DSL for over 6 years, I thought it was a good time to change to FIOS. However, I am disappointed with the hidden costs of FIOS and I’m now spending more $$$ than I did with Comcast. The Internet is OK for most of our MACS, but my husband’s Windows PC is having mail problems. As for the MAC email, I’ve used the Verizon email for personal use for years, but have noticed increased SPAM in the last 9 mos. or so (before FIOS). Lots of the (send to) addresses are verizon.net and I wonder if Verizon email lists are being sold or floating freely in cyberspace. I’ve made lots of rules in the Mac OSX email and it seems like they don’t filter very well. I still need to call Verizon to straighten out some things with my account, but I haven’t had HOURS to wait on hold or be cut off – last time I called Verizon it took 6 different operators and a couple of redials to get to someone competent. Notice how Verizon always ends their calls with a “thank you,” and “have I answered all your questions today?” They really should tell you more up front than they do, but that last line seems to be their CYA. I did not lose my Safari bookmarks, but I am still on OS10.3.9 Panther. Is Tiger any better for email, or should I wait for Leopard to be available? I’m thinking of ditching my Verizon email account no matter what. BTW: Comcast called and offered our previous package at half the price.

Outstanding, common sense, and thorough review!
Covers all aspects of home networking, and which service provides the fastest access. Fios is being installed on 01/02/07 in my home, and like the reviewer, I have had Optimum for years. Though uptime has been gotten better these past years, the performance has degraded. I just put in VOIP (two lines) for home office. It sucks, which I attribute to low bandwidth. My neighbor put in Fios, and I ran speed speed tests, he’s doing twice the speed (Upload and Download) that I am with Optimum for $10.00 less than I’m paying. And that’s on a crappy Notebook, using wireless! I popped for the 20Mbps Download/5Mbps upload package, which works out to be the same as what I’m paying Optimum for 15Mbps Download/2Mbps Upload. Thanks for this excellent review, great job!!

Unbelievably thorough article – and an oustanding read as well!

Installing Broadband Tuner dropped my latency from 60ms+to 7ms+ on 5/2mbs Fios installation.

Thanks.

David,

Both the DLink and the Airport Extreme are routers. The DLink 604 has 4 wired ports, the Airport Extreme has (depending on which model) probably has one wired port. The Airport Extreme also has wireless and a USB port to connect a supported printer allowing for wireless printing.

You could actually use the Apple Airport to replace the DLink or use them together. To use them together just connect the Airport Extreme to one of the wired DLink ports and use the wireless features of the Airport. In this case you are not using the Airport as your router, the DLink is your router and the Airport is being used as a wireless base station for laptops. See Apple intructions for setup.

Airport can work with the Apple TV, but wired is better. If you want to use wireless I suggest you lock down the Airport to use 802.11g or if you have the latest Airport unit 802.11n for more thru-put.

See: http://www.reelsmart.com/2006/03/26/wireless-security-for-home-networks/ for more help.

Thanks for reading ReelSmart.

Sandy,

Recently AOL now allows you to keep your email address when you cancel a dial up plan. Changing email is a lot like switching your telephone number. Your number changes and you need to give the new one to friends and relatives. You can have the phone company forward your calls to the new number for awhile, same with email.

Problem is some email accounts with some vendors are not forwarded as they use this to lock you in. In the case of AOL, they have had a change of heart lately and allow you to keep your email free to use from their website. You may be able to “forward” your email, but I do not think AOL has this feature. At least it was not sp apparent when I checked last time.

You will find FiOS Internet speeds and service probably better than Cablevision, we should did.

Jacob,
Glad you found the article useful. I just had FiOS TV added to our house and will be posting about it in detail soon. If your experience is like ours, you should find the speed of FiOS Internet superior and more consistent than your cable modem. Also FiOS has much better upload speeds, which is important for anyone using VoIP, Slingbox, or uploading pictures or files to the Internet. In our area in north Jersey the FiOS TV offered more channels at better quality than Cablevision.

Good luck with your installation. Sounds like you are lucky as many apartment dwellers have been cut out of FiOS as an option due to landlord/owner issues. Any new service should be a nice improvement for you, especially if the price is less!

Henry

Thanks for your reply. I have now posted on FiOS TV. See http://www.reelsmart.com/2007/03/15/verizon-fios-tv-installed-cablevision-out/.

I give as complete a review as I can. As always I give my honest unbiased opinions and point out the weak and the strong points. As always I hope readers will find the article informative and entertaining. In this case I hope it may help them make a good decision if they are looking for a cable TV provider.

Give it a read and comment. Thanks for reading what I write.

I have a tentative order for Fios–have some cushion while I check out some of the technical issues with our cross platform home–3 macs and a underutilized PC. This is such a good article and I’ve bookmarked it to read again later. I learned so much. Have had Verizon DSL for a number of years with no complaints other than Verizon’s general customer service. As soon as they learn there are Macs AND a PC, they bail. And don’t even mention Airport! Because of my concerns, which you have begun to put to rest, about Mac compatibility issues, I just wanted to go for the Fios TV, only to be told that Fios TV and Verizon DSL are incompatible and that I’d have to “migrate” the DSL to Fios. Sheesh! The package is cheaper than what I pay now for phone/internet/cable TV so it’s enticing, not to mention the speed.
I’ll be back if I have any more specific questions and to read more.
Thanks all.

Outstanding, and thorough review! Thank you so much, I loved being a little knowledgeable when the tech showed up.

Our Fios was installed today. I’m in Northern Virginia and a couple of things are different from your original review. They no longer use Cat 5 cable for the wireless router they use RG6 cable. All our Macs are wireless (iMac, Powerbook G4 and iBook). The macs found the wireless router instantly.

We registered our email account online with no software to download and no bookmarks lost.

The Verizon techs were great! They had to be creative running the cables in our old home, very patient. They were courteous and knowledgeable. The only screwup was on Verizon’s end, we were suppose to have our cable run underground and that did not happen. So a temporary line was run to the house from the pole and they will run it underground later this week.

Interestingly enough, my cable speeds are comparable to your FiOS speeds. Verizon knocked on my door earlier this week asking if they can use my personal easement to lay fiber optic cable, and they told me that FiOS will be available around Easter of next year. But now I wonder if it’s worth it, if the speeds aren’t that much faster….

Our FiOs install was very successful a couple of months ago. I anticipated the installation with the lowest of expectations, figuring that was the way to avoid disappointment. And I was not optimistic when the nice young man who came to install said he knew nothing about Macs (We have three, and one Dell PC) and not much about networking. Had to wonder how he got his job, but those were the cards I was dealt so I let him proceed.
I was not really interested in the FiOS internet; I had Verizon DSL and was satisfied enough and figured, “if it ain’t broke….” But V told me if I had FiOS TV–what I was really interested in (and in giving Comcast the boot)–my DSL had to “migrate” to FiOs, too. Oh well.
Everything went just fine, but I don’t think the nice young man really understood why. So I will give credit to the Macs and that he didn’t try to mess with them much and they just recognized the new configuration and connected.
As you can tell, I am not as technically adept or knowledgable as many others here. I am grateful that everything continues to work but cannot talk in terms of upload/download time, packets and such, and hope it continues as the one thing I dread is having to call Verizon customer service which I find in most instances to be an oxymoron.
The information here did give me some confidence in considering the switch and I will continue to visit in the hopes of learning more. Thanks.

I suggest you try Firefox. The web builder may be incompatible with Safari. Download Firefox from here:
http://en.www.mozilla.com/en/firefox/

Joseph,
The ONT is strickly a fiber convertor. FiOS telephones are not actual VoIP. The voice signal travels over the fiber to the CO (cental office) to the normal phone soft switch a lot like POTS but over fiber. There fore the sound quality is usually a bit better than the old copper lines. FiOS is compatible with all the standard phone jacks in your house and analog phone equipment. No codec is used insde the ONT, it is just a AD fiber convertor. In VZ network they use lambdas to separate voice, video, and data traffic.

Paul,

The Actiontec router they are now using is not bad. You will probably want to use their router as it has a the built-in NIM for VOD for FiOS TV and puts them on the hook for support of the router.

You can easily shut off the wireless section of the provided router connect the Apple Airpot via Ethernet and use the Airport as your wireless access point.

I am using the Actiontec router (I had them upgrade the original D-Link) with several Airpot express units running Airtunes with no problems.

I went to terminal and entered the ping command to test for latency and nothing ever returned.
It only said
PING a.root-servers.net (198.41.0.4): 56 data bytes

Looks as if Verizon has turned “ping” off on their servers.

Not sure what your problem is or if Verizon tech installed something on your Mac? No software is needed on your Mac to use a FiOS connection. Maybe just trash the file.

Thanks Jennifer.

I think they block the standard port 80 per their FAQ. I just haven’t been able to find out about SSL ports.

just had FIOS installed yesterday,,,, Actiontec router.
all is well… and working…G5 dual 1.8 with OSX: 10.4.11
inet is fast, TV much clearer than cable (on a 10 year old set),
Really a major shock how good the TV looks and I don’t have a HDef TV! Phone is just like before, no difference. Getting a lil bit higher UL rate than your image shows.

Tech was quick, accurate and even patient with my questions, and I did not bother installing any of their software.
Was soooooooo glad to be rid of COMCAST!!

Just had Verizon 15/2 FiOS internet installed & connected to my iMac via ethernet cable. Works great & fast. I would like to connect my AirPort Extreme base station to the Verizon supplied Actiontec router & use the Extreme as my wireless point but can’t figure out how to make it work. Do I connect the ethernet cable from the router to the WAN port on the Express rather than the computer? Do I turn off wireless in the router? Are there any other “setting” I need to be aware of? Any help will be appreciated.

Joe,
Good luck with FiOS. You can use your Apple Airport for Wireless if you like with or without the Actiontec router. If you ran Ethernet to the Actiontec you could use your Airport in its place. Or you can connect the Airport to the Actiontec and use it as a wireless access point. Just turn off the wireless in the Actiontec and connect the WAN port of the Apple Airport to the Actiontec and configure the Airport to use only the wireless.

Anyone else have trouble with the HDTV DVR Fios set-top box and treadmills? The regular set top box was fine, but when we upgraded to the HDTV box, we can’t treadmill when watching live TV – the TV freezes. Also, without using the treadmill the TV pixelates intermittently. No real problems when watching “OnDemand” or recorded shows from the DVR. We’ve tried using a monster HDMI cable and surge protectors on both the HDTV/DVR and treadmill (which are on different outlets) and there’s no improvement. It takes several attempts to get through to Verizon FIOS service, and we’ve already changed the HDTV box once. Any ideas?

Bethany,
Glad you found a solution. Thanks for reading ReelSmart.

Dave,
I recently swapped out the Actiontec router supplied by Verizon for an older Apple Airport Extreme router. The was reason was I was tired of having to re-boot the Actiontec twice a day (this is my third one). I was quickly able to use the Apple router using FiOS User + password for the PPOE settings. Works perfectly.

Two different things to look out for. One is you will need to have a router that Verizon installed using cat 5, not RG6 for Internet connection to the ONT. Two – need to have NIM connected to get VOD and widgets working on TV (see post). If you can not do this (Verizon can) you may want to put the Actiontec router in bridge mode add the Apple router for wireless and DHCP. This is a little tricky but do-able.

Leah,

Verizon FiOS is the same as most ISPs that they usually block port 25 (common outgoing mail) for all mail servers but their own. This is a spam protection for ISPs to limit access to rouge mail servers. You usually have to either configure the email to use their outgoing server for mail or use web mail. Some mail like gmail uses a different port and can be setup to be used with many ISPs that block port 25.

@Jim,

The broadband tuner was helpful with older version of OS X, I doubt this is your problem. Try rebooting your FiOS router. I had nothing but problems with the Actiontec router they provided and even had them send me a replacement that was no better. I am now using an Apple router without any problems.

Was there an answer to the question regarding Fios and treadmills? I have the same problem. Have HD DVR box and whenever we are on treadmill, picture freezes or pixalates. Did not have this issue with. This is a problem since whole point of treadmill in front of TV is entertainment while working out. Any suggestions? Thanks.