Slow WiFi on iPAQ 4150?

Hi folks,

I have recently bought an iPAQ 4150 and thought I'd try out the wireless internet capability. It so happens I was in a Starbucks and after a few minutes of fiddling, had it connected to T-mobile. I changed no settings at all (it automatically selected the T-mobile network and connected me) and launched pocket IE. It immediately changed its URL to that of T-mobile and after a painful wait, offered me the chance to log-in or sign-up for a new account.

Out of curiosity, I decided to attempt to sign up (£2.99/day I think), however, when I chose the link to sign up, it seemed to spend forever trying to establish a link to the https:// site for sign up purposes. The page loaded at a rate comparable to my old 9600bps modem and never fully loaded. After half an hour of waiting and starting again from scratch, I gave up. Later in the day, I tried in a different Starbucks and had a similar experience - i.e. connected to T-mobile, but unable to load the sign up page.

I guess my query is this: Are there some very obvious settings I haven't enabled? The iPAQ got to this stage each time just by me launching "iPAQ Wireless" and then "Internet Explorer". I know the theoretical throughput of 802.11b, and the speed I was experiencing was just unusable never mind "fast".

Or are Hotspots like Starbucks known for being unreliable/slow/prone to congestion? Both Starbucks I was in were very quiet in terms of other customers.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Rob