Cynical Network - telnet data

Dear Perry - firstly thanks for such a great plugin. I'm using it successfully with my Bang and Olufsen AV system to send and receive commands from my (home automation) Beolink Gateway using the B&O "Home Integration Protocol". The gateway also provides a telnet facility (looks like classic telnet on port 23, and I believe 8 bit binary data with \CR\NL line endings). I'd like to communicate via the telnet interface as it offers a richer data stream than the Home Integration Protocol.

I've set up a TCP OUT device pointing to the correct host on port 23. I've set up a variable ("BLGW_Telegram") for the last line read and set the end of line to CR\NL. When I attempt to connect I get the following errors in the log:

Cynical Network Error plugin runConcurrentThread function returned or failed (will attempt again in 10 seconds)
Error XML Parse Error: not well-formed (invalid token)
Error On character 346 of line number 1.
Cynical Network Error in runConcurrentThread: Traceback (most recent call last):
File ".../Server Plugin/cyin/debugging.py", line 58, in diagnostic_log
yield
File ".../Server Plugin/cyin/debugging.py", line 68, in diagnose_call
return method(*args, **kwargs)
File ".../Server Plugin/cyin/asynplugin.py", line 64, in runConcurrentThread
self.run()
File ".../Server Plugin/asyn/inject.py", line 61, in run
asyn.Controller.run(self)
File ".../Server Plugin/asyn/controller.py", line 105, in run
item._can_read()
File ".../Server Plugin/asyn/selectable.py", line 231, in _can_read
self._scan(input)
File ".../Server Plugin/asyn/scan.py", line 65, in _scan
result = self.scan.scan(self._rbuf, self.callout)
File ".../Server Plugin/asyn/scan.py", line 123, in scan
callout(ctx, *m.groups())
File ".../Server Plugin/asyn/core.py", line 152, in callout
results = [cb(ctx, *args) for cb in list(self._callbacks)] # latch callback list
File "plugin.py", line 152, in _event
self.lastinput_var = matches[0]
File ".../Server Plugin/cyin/attr.py", line 370, in __set__
indigo.variable.updateValue(self._variable(obj), str(value))
StandardError: ServerCommunicationError -- timeout waiting for response

Is there any way I can open a telnet conversation with the gateway using the network plugin? All I need to do is open the connection, and send the lines "password", "monitor", "M" and "C". The gateway will then provide a readout of any command, macro or event generated on the B&O system which will (hopefully) be stored in my "BLGW_Telegram" variable to trigger scripts.

Any advice would be hugely appreciated

With best wishes
Luke