1. You can try enabling the log files to debug by adding "Dump_Log => $logfile, " to your instantiation of the Net::Telnet object.
2. If you see what looks like odd characters mixed in there, it is because Net::Telnet defaults to NVT as its TERMINAL type and the Telnet server you are connecting to didn't negotiate that TERM TYPE properly with Net::Telnet, and so the Telnet server defaults to whatever it's default TERM is (usually vt100 or vt52) and starts sending escape characters with the text. The author of Net::Telnet developed it for Unix so I don't think this may be your problem, but if it is then here are 2 solutions: 1) Rewrite the Net::Telnet module to handle the escape characters or negotiate the correct TERM TYPE. 2) Use a filter to strip out the ANSI Escape characters. If you look here Remove Escape Codes I have provided a solution to removing the escape codes for 2 TERM TYPES so Win32. I have a telnet client that I wrote for learning purposes if you want to see what is going on in more detail with the telnet protocol.

Cheers,
JamesNC