GLITCH SEVERS ACCESS TO PACIFICNET SERVICE.

Byline: Lisa Van Proyen Daily News Staff Writer

As many as 5,000 customers throughout Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange counties who carry PacificNet as their on-line service provider were left without access to the Internet for about five hours Thursday, officials said.

Officials of PacificNet and Pacific Bell Internet Services, which supplies connections to the Canoga Park-based company, disagree on the cause.

PacificNet blamed it on a loose cable provided by Pacific Bell Internet Services.

The problem cable was found in Anaheim as a work crew was disconnecting cables, said Patrick Brown, assistant system administrator for PacificNet.

But Pacific Bell Internet Services pins the problem on a switch provided by PacificNet, according to Marc Bien, a Pacific Bell spokesman.

The problem left customers unable to access the Internet and electronic mail from about 1:30 to 6:30 p.m., said John Beckmeyer, a network engineer for Pacific Bell Internet Services.

``It's a hidden mouse game,'' Beckmeyer said of locating the problem spot.

Beckmeyer said Pacific Net appeared to be the only affected customer during the outage. Pacific Bell Internet has more than 900 customers who are Internet providers, he said.

``Other customers right next to them weren't impacted,'' Beckmeyer said.

One PacificNet customer in the Valley, Steve Wood, a computer consultant for Color Networks in Van Nuys, was among those interrupted during the workday.

``It has hampered our work,'' Wood said. ``We need to constantly get on the Internet to do research to keep up with technology. We get a lot of software updates off the Internet.''

PacificNet provides service to about 5,000 customers within homes, businesses and schools throughout the three counties.