iPod touch central source for wifi woes?

Add me to the list of those with wifi problems. I've got a new iPod Touch with 1.14.

At home, the place where I least need the connection, all is fine. I've got a hidden SSID with a WPA password. I've logged in successfully and it always works at home. In the three or four days I've had the Touch, I've failed almost completely to get a connection anywhere else.

There's citywide wifi in where I live. I can access it, but rarely make it to any website or any other internet related locale. When I succeed, it's SLOW. Often this is when the strength of the connection is good, according to the icon.

Today, I went to the university campus, which requires a login. Zero. Couldn't even get to the login page in Safari. That's even though I've chosen the university public router and supposedly have a strong connection.

I had a Touch for a couple weeks about six months ago. I returned it because wifi was such a pain. Now I got this one as part of the current promo that gets a $300 discount with a MBP purchase. Good thing the MBP is such a delight.

I see that this is a common kind of problem. Most of the threads I've found feature posters asking for help, but getting none. Some have bits and pieces of info, but I'm not finding anything comprehensive. One post I saw on the Apple site gave good detail on how to deal with the problem, but it was vital that the user have access to the router control panel. That's well and good, but I'd imagine that most of us with problems are more concerned with being unable to get internet access in public places than at home where we have computers.

Two things. 1- Anyone have any ideas on what I can do to make this device do something other than look good and play music? And 2 - Is there a place here or elsewhere that details the various problems so many people seem to have and offer solutions or explanations? Has Apple acknowledged the weakness of wifi accessibility and performance? Is there any word about future firmware improving upon this?

Thanks for reading and for any help.

It's very frustrating. So many people have these problems that I'm surprised that I'm not having much luck at finding anything that comprehensively addresses the issues.

So far, I've seen tips that say that you should turn the Touch off, then on again to see if that helps. Another one that I have to try when in the right hotspot is to find a network that's potentially the one to be selected, join it, then, figuring that the problem will be what you described in your topic, mfirst, forget the network, then try it again, maybe after rebooting the device.

From the Apple site: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1315137&tstart=0

This link describes in detail some things to do, but it assumes that you can access the network's router control panel. As I mentioned in the OP, that's fine, but it's the circumstance in which it's least likely to be necessary or useful. Still, maybe something useful is to be found there.