An electronic system architecture comprises a plurality of client devices connected in a hierarchical structure in which the client devices form nodes in the structure interconnected by communications links. One client device at the top of the hierarchical structure provides a gateway to a server and each other client device is connected to a single client device through a single communications link in an upstream direction and each client device is connected to a number, which may be zero, of client devices through the same number of communications links in a downstream direction. The downstream client devices have lower bandwidth requirements than any client devices upstream of them and the sum of the bandwidths of the communications links from each client device in a downstream direction is less than the bandwidth of the communications links in the upstream direction.