System and methods for determining an optimized transmit spectra (spectral distributions of transmission power) for a set of communications channels that experience cross-talk among themselves and for transmitting data on the channels. The transmit spectra are preferably constructed so that largely contiguous frequency bands are allocated to each signaling direction (upstream/downstream) on each communications channel and/or to each channel in the set of channels. In one embodiment, each communications channel is restricted to a maximum time-averaged power. The method preferably includes steps of determining the channel transfer functions of the communications channel, determining interference characteristics of the channels, calculating substantially optimal transmit spectra for the communications channels, and redistributing the frequency bins so that they are contiguously grouped in each transmit spectra. The contiguous groupings allow wider frequency bands for signaling in the channel. In one embodiment, the channel is limited by a “peak-power constraint.”