A system is provided for speculative scheduling that includes a base station having a processor. The processor computes an overall schedule for a set of clients. The overall schedule is formed from a set of speculative schedules, is configured to maximize unlicensed spectrum usage, and is computed by (a) determining a speculative schedule for each resource block from a set of resource blocks in a given sub-frame based on statistics determined for the clients individually and jointly, and (b) selecting, for formation into the overall schedule, (i) a particular resource block and (ii) the speculative schedule for the particular resource block, that yield the maximum incremental utility relative to already determined speculative schedules for other resource blocks in the set, based on criteria including uplink access statistics. The processor executes the overall schedule responsive to a completion of the speculative schedule determination for each resource block in the given sub-frame.