Telenet, also known as SprintNet, was service Sprint provides for accessing a network from a remote computer using the X.25 protocol, similar to Tymnet or SITA. It has nothing to do with Telnet. Telenet's heyday was during the 1980s and was fairly advanced for its time. Instead of using a modem to directly connect to the remote computer, you could call a local Telenet/SprintNet number and execute a logon script which would connect you to your remote network. This cut down on long distance charges and also did not require phone lines and modems on the end you were connecting to, just a Telenet box. It was actually a somewhat versatile system. Telenet was used by many businesses (including the company I work for) for remote access to email. Telenet was also used to connect to most of the large BBS systems of the 1980s and early 1990s like CompuServe, Delphi, and GEnie. It was even possible to do PPP and SLIP connections with X.25.

The Internet has pretty much made X.25 services obsolete. Services like VPN for remote network access are faster, cheaper, and more versatile. Even though Sprint has discontinued Telenet, many backward companies (including my own) continue use an X.25 service. Also many countries in Latin America and other underdeveloped parts of the world do not have luxuries like frame relays and have nothing besides X.25 available to them. Some technologies die hard.

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