User:Guslinares

Gustave (Gus) Linares developed a taste for technology and computers during the 12 years he spent working for the MoD, when PCs were introduced to help in the budget and accountancy function. “I also had a small computer at home which I used for video and graphics and became increasingly fascinated by the Internet – which was relatively new and was not available in Gibraltar.” A keen photographer, at that stage Linares used his knowledge of the technology and graphics to add moving captions and other trimmings to the wedding videos which he recorded. But his interest in the internet grew and, using two providers – one in the UK and the other in Spain – together with his colleague and great friend, Daniel Calamaro, who catalyzed his interest in the possibilities offered by Cyberspace, set up the Gibraltar Solid Rock BBS using “Fidonet” which was effectively a precursor to today’s e-mail. “The early stuff and the technology involved was fascinating” he recalls. The two men ran their service using a modem and operated from a shop located at Gibraltar’s Castle Street. The service they established “brought us into contact with a guy in Zaragoza named Ramon Pacheco (Rampa) who told us: ‘Come here for a week and I will teach you everything you need to know about the internet’.” They both left for Zaragoza - where Ramon was as good as his word – and returned to Gibraltar where he introduced internet access and internet services, forming the local company Gibnet with two colleagues. The innovative move was to pave the way for internet development on the Rock of Gibraltar and laid the basis for today’s local gaming industry, which provides some 1600 jobs for local and expatriate employees and directly and indirectly contributes £10 million annually to Government revenues. He (NIC handle: GAL6) also obtained and managed Gibraltar’s .gi internet top level domain (TLD), introducing the Rock’s own internet name hierarchy and establishing Gibraltar on the internet as a separate country – preventing Spain from controlling or removing the Rock’s TLD code as was currently the case with Gibraltar’s 350 telephone country code. “Spain was anxious to get her hands on ‘.gi’, but by acting in time and using the knowledge we had gained by then, we were able to prevent them and force them to recognize Gibraltar as a separate entity…at least as far as the Internet is concerned,” Linares says. Initially when Linares set up Gibnet as a company he continued to work in the MoD and another old school friend, J. Imossi “fronted” as the face of the new company. But in 1995 the “slow bureaucracy” of the MoD so irritated him that, after 12 years, he resigned and took over as managing and technical director of Gibnet. “We established our own laser link and when Interkeno, the first internet gaming company to set up in Gibraltar, wanted an internet line they came to us. Later – when with Advanced Business Communications - Linares set up and commissioned microwave internet circuits for other gaming companies - an operation that involved working round the clock for several days to have the site ready for betting on the running of the Grand National. “We made it…with a couple of hours to spare,” he confesses with a wry smile. Advanced Business Communications was given a temporary communications license but eventually revoked. Linares then joined the Citizens Advice Bureau – where he worked as IT Systems Manager for 8 years.

In Sept 2011 he joined Gib Govt's ITLD where he is currently employed.