A computer-implemented method executed in a wireless communication system for establishing communication links in a millimeter wave network is presented. The method includes determining active communication links between a plurality of transmitters and a plurality of receivers operated by a plurality of users and formulating a quality of service (QoS) proportional fairness (PF) network utility as a constrained submodular set function maximization problem. The method further includes performing an optimization framework by optimizing, based on the active communication links, user association for fixed transmit beam patterns and optimizing, based on the active communication links, the fixed transmit beam patterns and corresponding beam attributes for a fixed set of user associations. The method also includes iteratively performing the optimizing steps in an alternating manner to determine a user from the plurality of users that optimizes the constrained submodular set function maximization problem and assigning the determined user to a cell.