That doesn't mean that the outgoing port is closed.
On my test account, on vox, I get the same response to a telnet request but this test script works:
<?php
$foo = "";
$bar = "";
$fp = fsockopen( "whois.pir.org" , 43 , $foo, $bar, 30);
fputs($fp, "redcross.org" . "\r\n");
$out...