It sounds like you are sending only numeric data and not characters. Perhaps you should send chr(24).

Update: How are you sending the control-X characters? I suspect that you are enclosing the strings in single quotes like in your write up which is not the same as having them enclosed in double quotes.

The following all print control-X characters locally (I cannot test via Net::Telnet at the moment).

print chr(24),"\n";
print "\x18\n";
print "\cX\n";
print "\30\n"; # that's 24 in octal ;-)
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