Cable having core, jacket and polymeric jacket access features located in the jacket

Abstract

Cables jacket are formed by extruding discontinuities in a main cable jacket portion. The discontinuities allow the jacket to be torn to provide access to the cable core. The armor cables have an armor layer with armor access features arranged to work in combination with the discontinuities in the cable jacket to facilitate access to the cable core.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method of accessing a stack of optical fibers in an optical fiber cable, the cable comprising a jacket having at least one co-extruded jacket discontinuity embedded in a co-extruded main portion, the method comprising:
 separating the jacket along the at least one jacket discontinuity embedded in the jacket to reveal a buffer tube; and   peeling back a section of the buffer tube to access the optical fiber ribbon stack.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 separating a section of armor along at least one armor access feature prior to peeling back a section of the buffer tube.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the section of buffer tube is between buffer tube discontinuities and the buffer tube is at least partially bonded to the jacket. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the at least one armor access feature comprises two armor access features and the section of armor is between the two armor access features. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the at least one jacket discontinuity comprises two jacket discontinuities, and the method further comprises:
 peeling back a section of the jacket between the two jacket discontinuities.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein and the two armor access features are aligned with the jacket discontinuities, and the method further comprises:
 peeling back a section of the armor between the two armor access features simultaneously with the peeling back of the section of the jacket between the two jacket discontinuities.