 Southern Bell had been the Bell System operating company for the entire Southeast until 1967, when the western portion of its service territory became South Central Bell.BellSouth formed a shared services company, BellSouth Services, to provide centralized functions such as engineering and information technology to Southern Bell and South Central Bell.Services provided in the BellSouth operating area include telephone and DSL/Dial-Up Internet services in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.