Well Perls telnet module has a function called "waitfor" that acts exactly like expect would would you issue a command and "waitfor" a certain response and then continue. If you are telneting to a piece of cisco gear then I would use the Net::Telnet::Cisco module and the waitfor function. I would do this because the Net::Telnet:Cisco function is going to be more catered to the interaction you will see on a cisco box. Also if your target machine uses any sort of special telnet formatting then the telnet module also might be a better choice. I have never used the expect module so I am not sure how configurable it is but I have program in expect itself which is a derivitive of TCL and the expect language itself is very versatile so if the module takes after the language either should be a good choice.