Cisco Aironet 3802e

Cisco · ceiling-mount access point, Wi-Fi 5 Wave 2, external antennas · AIR-AP3802E

what it is

An 802.11ac Wave 2 access point with external antennas — that is the whole difference from the i variant of the same series and the whole reason it exists. A square plate, 220 × 220 mm and 67 mm thick, weighing 2.09 kg, made of polycarbonate.

The visible face has four antenna connectors, one in each corner, plus a fifth, separate smart antenna connector on the right side. They let the radiation direction and gain be matched to the room instead of accepting what the enclosure dictates. The manufacturer allows antennas with up to 6 dBi of gain.

This is not a bigger 2800 model, it is different hardware. Apart from the antennas, it differs in:

• an mGig 100/1000/2500/5000 Mb/s port instead of a plain gigabit one — with three radios, gigabit can become a bottleneck sooner than you might think;
• a separate auxiliary 100/1000BASE-T port;
• a 48 V power jack, which the 2800 model does not have at all;
• heatsink fins on the back — the manufacturer points out that the 2800 is smooth and has none;
• a side slot for an expansion module.

Powered via PoE+, drawing up to 22.5 W, or 25.5 W with the USB port enabled.

Watch the part number. The second-to-last segment is the regulatory domain, i.e. the country, not a hardware revision; for Poland the correct one is -E. There is also a separate 3802p variant with identical dimensions, differing in permitted antenna gain (up to 13 dBi) — they cannot be told apart by the enclosure.

what we read from it

The same radio set as from the other Cisco access points of this generation:

• Channel utilization separately on 2.4 and 5 GHz, broken down into transmit and receive.
• Noise floor in each band.
• Operating channel and transmit power in each band, together with whether they are set automatically.
• Number of radio neighbors seen in each band.
• Radar events and DFS channel changes on 5 GHz.
• Coverage, interference, load and noise ratings issued by the controller — four separate verdicts, plus a count of clients with insufficient coverage.
• Uptime of the tunnel to the controller and the number of clients.
• Link state: negotiated speed, link-down counter, frame errors and CRC errors. For this model the speed itself matters — the port can do 5 Gb/s, but it will negotiate whatever the switch on the other end allows.

port layout

The visible face has four antenna connectors, one in each corner, and one status indicator roughly in the middle. The connectors do not sit on a square: they are closer to the left and right edges than to the top and bottom ones, by about 8 mm. The fifth connector, for the smart antenna, is on the right side of the enclosure.

The remaining connections are on the narrow edge, in order from the left: security cable slot, mode button, console port, USB port, auxiliary port, main mGig port, cable guide clip and 48 V power jack.

The manufacturer does not publish a straight-on view of the connector edge, so the drawing shows the enclosure outline in true proportions rather than the panel.

what to watch out for

• This model has no CleanAir spectrum analysis in the third radio slot. The controller reports it as "CleanAir Capable: No", and analysis on the 5 GHz band in slot 0 is disabled. Full spectrum analysis without monitor mode comes only with the Aironet 4800.
• The 2.4 GHz radio is flexible and is configured with the 802.11-abgn command family, not 802.11b — the same as in the 2800 series.

what we cannot read

• Temperature — the device does not expose it.
• What is connected to which antenna connector or what gain it has — the device does not know.
• A list of clients with names — aggregate statistics are visible, not a roster of people.
• Spectrum outside its own operating channels.

full parameter list

A full parameter list for this model is not here yet — the ones described above are those we have read and verified. A missing list does not mean the device exposes nothing more.