An apparatus configured to be employed with a base station, comprising: a radio frequency, RF, circuitry; and one or more processors communicatively coupled to the RF circuitry and configured to: determine, for one or more user equipments, UEs,: one or more punctured symbols in a first subframe associated with an unlicensed frequency band; schedule, for the one or more UEs, an uplink grant including uplink resources comprising one or more resource blocks in the unlicensed frequency band, wherein the uplink grant schedules at most one of the one or more UEs to each of the one or more resource blocks; and transmit: a set of listen before talk, LBT, parameters for an unlicensed frequency band, the LBT parameters including a common carrier sensing duration and a common backoff duration for the one or more UEs; a downlink control information, DCI, indicating positions of symbols in the first subframe that are to be punctured in accordance with the determined one or more punctured symbols; and the uplink grant, wherein the first subframe precedes a second subframe having the uplink grant, and wherein the base station does not transmit during a duration of the subframe comprising the one or more punctured symbols; and receive transmissions over the uplink resources according to a LBT procedure associated with the common carrier sensing duration and the common backoff duration performed by at least one of the one or more UEs during the one or more punctured symbols. a radio frequency, RF, circuitry; and one or more processors communicatively coupled to the RF circuitry and configured to: determine, for one or more user equipments, UEs,: one or more punctured symbols in a first subframe associated with an unlicensed frequency band; schedule, for the one or more UEs, an uplink grant including uplink resources comprising one or more resource blocks in the unlicensed frequency band, wherein the uplink grant schedules at most one of the one or more UEs to each of the one or more resource blocks; and transmit: a set of listen before talk, LBT, parameters for an unlicensed frequency band, the LBT parameters including a common carrier sensing duration and a common backoff duration for the one or more UEs; a downlink control information, DCI, indicating positions of symbols in the first subframe that are to be punctured in accordance with the determined one or more punctured symbols; and the uplink grant, wherein the first subframe precedes a second subframe having the uplink grant, and wherein the base station does not transmit during a duration of the subframe comprising the one or more punctured symbols; and receive transmissions over the uplink resources according to a LBT procedure associated with the common carrier sensing duration and the common backoff duration performed by at least one of the one or more UEs during the one or more punctured symbols. determine, for one or more user equipments, UEs,: one or more punctured symbols in a first subframe associated with an unlicensed frequency band; schedule, for the one or more UEs, an uplink grant including uplink resources comprising one or more resource blocks in the unlicensed frequency band, wherein the uplink grant schedules at most one of the one or more UEs to each of the one or more resource blocks; and transmit: a set of listen before talk, LBT, parameters for an unlicensed frequency band, the LBT parameters including a common carrier sensing duration and a common backoff duration for the one or more UEs; a downlink control information, DCI, indicating positions of symbols in the first subframe that are to be punctured in accordance with the determined one or more punctured symbols; and the uplink grant, wherein the first subframe precedes a second subframe having the uplink grant, and wherein the base station does not transmit during a duration of the subframe comprising the one or more punctured symbols; and a set of listen before talk, LBT, parameters for an unlicensed frequency band, the LBT parameters including a common carrier sensing duration and a common backoff duration for the one or more UEs; a downlink control information, DCI, indicating positions of symbols in the first subframe that are to be punctured in accordance with the determined one or more punctured symbols; and the uplink grant, wherein the first subframe precedes a second subframe having the uplink grant, and wherein the base station does not transmit during a duration of the subframe comprising the one or more punctured symbols; and receive transmissions over the uplink resources according to a LBT procedure associated with the common carrier sensing duration and the common backoff duration performed by at least one of the one or more UEs during the one or more punctured symbols.