Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communication are described. The described techniques provide for transmission of uplink data from a user equipment (UE) in the absence of scheduled uplink resources for the uplink data transmission that are allocated to the UE prior to the transmission of the uplink data. Various examples provide frame structures that may be used for unscheduled uplink transmissions of a UE. Unscheduled uplink transmissions may be transmitted in a shared or unlicensed radio frequency spectrum, and access to the shared or unlicensed radio frequency spectrum may be determined based on a priority of an operator associated with a UE for accessing the spectrum. Beamforming techniques may be used for uplink and downlink transmissions and beam widths for beamformed transmissions may be selected based on the information transmitted in a transmission, an operator priority for use of shared radio frequency spectrum, or any combination thereof.