Telnet is absolutely essential for working with certain classes of equipment that were created to be used via serial ports and have some kind of ethernet-to-serial adapter that gets them on a network. In most of these situations there isn't even a computer.
For example, I work with LED signs, think the ones over the highway or in a gas station; a lot of these were built and installed in the 90s and at some point they gained network capability to remove the need to run out with a laptop to reprogram a sign in the middle of a thunderstorm. There are programs that make sending the commands easier (but still don't provide any form of encryption because again the sign won't know anything about it), but at the end of the day telnet is the most versatile tool for sending and receiving info about a sign that may be hundreds of miles away.
Telnet is absolutely essential for working with certain classes of equipment that were created to be used via serial ports and have some kind of ethernet-to-serial adapter that gets them on a network. In most of these situations there isn't even a computer.
For example, I work with LED signs, think the ones over the highway or in a gas station; a lot of these were built and installed in the 90s and at some point they gained network capability to remove the need to run out with a laptop to reprogram a sign in the middle of a thunderstorm. There are programs that make sending the commands easier (but still don't provide any form of encryption because again the sign won't know anything about it), but at the end of the day telnet is the most versatile tool for sending and receiving info about a sign that may be hundreds of miles away.