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.