Just got a new IPOD Touch and it wont connect to our Wifi home network with a Belken N Router. Our router uses WEP 64 bit security, but had a "blank" password field, which the IPOD did not like. Changing to a 6 char numeric PW didnt help either.

Question

OS is whatever OS ships with current IPOD Touch
I cannot understand why the APPLE engineers have designed this product so that it has SO MANY WIFI problems.  This is supposed to be an easy-to-use product.  We've had no problems connecting our new laptop, our ROKU box, etc, but it seems impossible to get the IPOD touch to work.  NOTHING LIKE SPENDING XMAS MORNING DOING APPLE TECH SUPPORT TROUBLESHOOTING TO LEAVE YOU IN THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT!!!  Argh!
In fact, the only way we have been able to get this expensive brand new IPOD to work on our home network is to DISABLE SECURITY in the router settings.  THIS IS ANYTHING BUT A GOOD IDEA.
DON"T KNOW WHY BUT MANY OTHER USERS ARE REPORTING THE SAME KIND OF PROBLEM SO APPLE ENGINEERING NEEDS TO GET BUSY AND FIX THIS PROBLEM SO THAT NEW USERS CAN CONNECT TO THE INTERNET WITHOUT HAVING TO BE TRAINED ROUTER ENGINEERS TO DO IT!!!!
Ok, sorry for the rant, but surely those of you who are experiencing this share my frustration.  This is not why I bought an APPLE product.
IS THERE ANY POSSIBILITY THAT APPLE WILL NOT ALLOW A WIFI PASSWORD with more than one identical alphanumeric character?  Any ideas?  We also tried eliminating the 40 MHZ setting under Bandwidth settings in the router settings for our router, but it made no difference.  The router has the latest firmware, too.  Running out of ideas, and am ready to box this unit up and send it back!

Answer 1

Thanks, Bob!  You are correct.  And, we learned this as we spoke with APPLE TECH SUPPORT by phone on Christmas day (800-APL-CARE).  One of their reps spent the time to help us troubleshoot this, but the boiled down conclusion is your answer, and to repeat for the benefit of others, here is what worked:
1. With our Belkin router set to "out-of-the-box" WEP 64 bit security, we could not get wireless access of any kind.  Only with the Security Mode set to DISABLED, could we gain access.
2. Changing the router's security mode setting to "WPA/WPA-2...." and entering a new min. 8 char passphrase, and then entering that same passphrase into the IPOD Touch, and restarting the router, did the trick!
Based on this, and some info found in another posting, I can only conclude that the IPODs and IPHONES do not support WEP security mode in many generic routers used by thousands of consumers.  Hopefully, those same consumers can figure out how to change their wireless router setttings to WPA/WPA-2 security mode and ALSO get all their other wireless devices (PCs, laptops, WII boxes, ROKU boxes) all reconfigured to WPA mode, too.
I THINK THE BOTTOM LINE HERE IS THAT THERE IS AN ISSUE THAT APPLE NEEDS TO ADDRESS WITH WEP COMPATIBILITY and it may also be the case that MOST CONSUMERS ARE USING WEP 64 BIT security on their home wireless routers?
In any case, it's working now, so anyone who is having problems should try changing to WPA mode and post back here if it worked for them!