A method and system is disclosed for managing performance of a wireless backhaul network through power management, which provides a practical approach to balancing data throughput and fairness. For each transmit frame, one or more power zones is defined, each power zone comprising a set of radio resources operating at one transmit power level Pi, and the same power zone being defined over the same set of radio resources across all other clusters. The method maximizes the value of weighted weighted-sum utility, using a rate expression based on a CINR function. The optimization comprises a summation of the weighted logarithm of the rate expression plus a non-negative constant value, using a Newton's method approach, for fast and reliable convergence. Optimization may be based on long term averaged channel gains measured for each link. The value of c is selected to achieve a required balance of fairness and data throughput.