Telnet alternative for Windows

Some people are seeing the telnet-client as a potential security risk (which it is), as it transmits username/password unencrypted.

So how do you do port/firewall debugging in production scenarios without installing telnet/putty/any telnet client.

From Windows 8/Server 2012 and later the following works (in powershell)

Test-NetConnection {ip/fqdn} -Port {port}

So something like Test-NetConnection google.com -Port 443 yields the following:

Response from Test-NetConnection google.com -Port 443

While Test-NetConnection 127.0.0.1 -Port 22 yields

Response from Test-NetConnection 127.0.0.1 -Port 22

As you can see if the port fails to reply, the command fits in a ping to see if the host is up or not.