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Talking (free WiFi) about Uganda - for the first time, it means VoIP, not "Ugandan Discussions"...

Frankly, I didn't believe Alice Kiingi's report that Uganda Telecom's new WiFi hotspot service was the first in the country. It seems, however, that if there are other Ugandan hotspots, they're well hidden.

The report is reassuringly specific: there are 18 hotspots at Entebbe Airport, Mateos Restaurant, Rwenzori Courts, International Hospital, Faze2 Restaurant, Uganda Golf Club, Workers House and Crested Towers, and (presumably) another ten not listed.

But are they really the first in that country? Well, it seems, yes.

Not only does WiFinder draw a blank on Entebbe - where Uganda Telecom has one hotspot at the airport - but worse, it doesn't even include Uganda in the list of countries it will search.

Other "find a hotspot" services seem equally baffled.

Quite possibly, Google's beta-test hotspot finder will be able to pin-point places where you can talk about Uganda over IP from a hotspot - but although Google Adsense is promoting this service, the link is still barren, and just connects you to Google Mobile, which offers (in the UK, anyway) the normal list of "find a site which will work on your mobile phone" services.

WiFi Hotspot List similarly professed ignorance of Uganda's existence, but accepted a request to search for hotspots in Entebbe. Quite how useful this is, when the search button produces a completely blank page with "Done" in the bottom left corner, is debatable.

There were five positive results from searching jiwire's hotspot finder, using the airport code EBB. Alas, shome mishtake... all five turned out to be in North America. And Uganda wasn't on jiwire's list of options, which probably explains that. And Yahoo's search claims to be the jiwire engine, which probably explains why that drew a blank, too.

A search for "wifi entebbe" drew a pleasingly long list of hits, headed by World66.com - which, when followed, simply said:

Internet Cafes -We currently have no Internet Cafes listed in Entebbe.If you do know any Internet Cafes in Entebbe, please [Add].

We were getting just a bit excited by Balancing Act's report, which showed a hit for wifi and Entebbe - but the excitement was premature, because the wifi story related to Kenya, and the Entebbe story related to a sound recording system in Entebbe's magistrate's court.

At this point, research was terminated. If anybody does know an internet cafe - with or without WiFi - in Uganda, please let us have details. Apparently, we aren't the only ones interested...