diff --git a/evennia/server/portal/telnet.py b/evennia/server/portal/telnet.py
index 86199ae4ac..9d7b31929d 100644
--- a/evennia/server/portal/telnet.py
+++ b/evennia/server/portal/telnet.py
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ _RE_LEND = re.compile(r"\n$|\r$|\r\n$|\r\x00$|", re.MULTILINE)
 _RE_LINEBREAK = re.compile(r"\n\r|\r\n|\n|\r", re.DOTALL + re.MULTILINE)
 _RE_SCREENREADER_REGEX = re.compile(r"%s" % settings.SCREENREADER_REGEX_STRIP, re.DOTALL + re.MULTILINE)
 _IDLE_COMMAND = settings.IDLE_COMMAND + "\n"
-_TELNET_ENCODING = settings.TELNET_ENCODING
+_TELNET_ENCODING = settings.ENCODINGS[0]
 
 class TelnetProtocol(Telnet, StatefulTelnetProtocol, Session):
     """
diff --git a/evennia/settings_default.py b/evennia/settings_default.py
index bb8e07fe44..5469fd46db 100644
--- a/evennia/settings_default.py
+++ b/evennia/settings_default.py
@@ -166,17 +166,12 @@ IDLE_TIMEOUT = -1
 # command-name is given here; this is because the webclient needs a default
 # to send to avoid proxy timeouts.
 IDLE_COMMAND = "idle"
-# The encoding (character set) specific to Telnet. This will not influence
-# other encoding settings: namely, the webclient, the website, the
-# database encoding will remain (utf-8 by default).  This setting only
-# affects the telnet encoding and will be overridden by user settings
-# (through one of their client's supported protocol or their account options).
-TELNET_ENCODING = "utf-8"
 # The set of encodings tried. An Account object may set an attribute "encoding" on
 # itself to match the client used. If not set, or wrong encoding is
 # given, this list is tried, in order, aborting on the first match.
 # Add sets for languages/regions your accounts are likely to use.
 # (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_encoding)
+# Telnet default encoding, unless specified by the client, will be ENCODINGS[0].
 ENCODINGS = ["utf-8", "latin-1", "ISO-8859-1"]
 # Regular expression applied to all output to a given session in order
 # to strip away characters (usually various forms of decorations) for the benefit