LinuxQuestions.org - Telnet - How to suppress local echo on Linux server

This takes some explanation. We have a large number of network routers, switches and appliances with their console ports connected to a Cyclades (Avocent ACS 6000 series). Our network ops staff connects to these devices through a Linux jump server which allows the tech to select the desired device from a menu, and then Telnets to the IP address associated with that network device on the Cyclades.

The problem is that the Avocent ACSes are new boxes, replacing older equipment that was end-of-life. On the new Avocents, most (but not all) of the network devices now exhibit a local echo (lliikkee tthhiiss), which did not happen before. Everyone says this can be turned off via a Telnet setting, but no one seems to know exactly how to do this. I've read through the MAN page for Telnet several times now, but like all good Linux documentation, it tells you how to use it without telling you how to use it. There's no command line switch that says "don't do local echo". The server is running GNU bash, version 3.1.7(1)-release (i386-redhat-linux-gnu).

There do seem to be Telnet session commands like "unset echo" that you can enter. So I tried using a here document like this:

telnet << EOB
unset echo
open 172.16.0.1
EOB

All this gets me is "Connection closed by remote host". In fact, anything else OTHER than the "open" statement in the here document produces this result, so there's no benefit over just issuing a straight "Telnet 172.16.0.1" command.

I don't understand why changing to a newer Avocent produced this result, and I don't understand why some devices do not emit a local echo. All I know is I've spent 2 days researching this and haven't found a thing. I hope someone here can help.

Additional information:

telnet> status
Connected to 10.64.37.176 (10.64.37.176).
Operating in single character mode
Catching signals locally
Local character echo
No flow control
Escape character is '^]'.
telnet>

So it knows local echo is set; how do I disable local character echo? The local character echo signal is Ctrl-E, but entering Ctrl-E does nothing. I thought it might act as a toggle, but as I say, it seems to do nothing.