An example method is provided in one example embodiment and includes receiving an indication of an average signal power for a downlink connection between a cell and each of a plurality of user equipment devices associated with the cell, receiving an indication of an average interference measurement on the downlink connection between the cell and each of the plurality of user equipment devices associated with the cell, and computing an average spectral efficiency for each of the plurality of user equipment devices based upon the respective average signal power and average interference measurement. The method further includes determining a transmission power level from among a plurality of available transmission power levels for one or more downlink resources for each of the plurality of user equipment devices based upon the computed average spectral efficiency for each of the plurality of user equipment devices.