Long term evolution (LTE) system operating in an unlicensed spectral band with active network discovery and optimization of the unlicensed channels

A method for assigning a percentage of a CSAT time cycle to each radio node (RN) in a plurality of RNs that belong to a small cell radio access network (RAN) having a central controller includes: (i) for each time cycle period during which the RNs share a channel with one or more nodes that employ a different radio access technology (RAT), assigning a default occupancy percentage of the time cycles to each of the RNs; (ii) determining if the default occupancy percentage is able to be increased without violating one or more co-existence principles pre-established for the RAT employed by the RNs in the RAN and the different RAT; (iii) increasing the occupancy percentage of the first RN if it is determined that the default occupancy percentage is able to be increased without violating the co-existence principles; and (iv) sequentially repeating (ii)-(iii) for each remaining RN in the RAN.