Acer making me pay to complete set up?

Brand new Acer Aspire One 532h-2527. Windows 7 Starter.

Out of the box, I couldn't get it to connect to a wireless network, only to discover the Network Adapter was not installed properly.

After calling tech support, they suggested reinstalling.

I did.

Network Adapter comes up, several networks are available, should be no problem.

The network I am trying to connect to is a WiFi hotspot that my home ISP has around the area. All I need is my regular user name and password that I use from
my home ISP in order to log on.

Problem is, it won't connect to it at all. There's even a yellow "!" next to it to indicate something's wrong.

I try connecting to other networks, to make sure that it's able to make a connection.

It can.

I call up tech support again and they tell me that there is a setting of some sort that needs to be changed in the computer in order to connect to a WiFi hotspot, but that this isn't part of the warranty, and if I want to have this corrected I have to call a pay-per-incident number that they offer to provide me.

Are they kidding?

Does anyone have a workaround for this?