We've been looking at it all wrong:
TL is a measure of what technology the local infrastructure will support.
Think about it. Yeah, smartphones are great - but they were created to
take advantage of the capabilities of already existing infrastructure
- cell phone towers, wireless internet, data communication via cell
phone frequencies, the electrical grid... Without them, a smartphone
is a fancy paperweight.
Infrastructure is the limiting force on what technology can be
feasibly imported. The price markups are for obtaining the gear
required to create a limited scale form of the required infrastructure
(or paying for someone else having already set it up).
SO a noble wants to import a few dtons of smartphones onto a low tech
world - rewards for local rulers, perhaps. Each phone requires:
communication infrastructure - either satnet in a can, or ground
towers. Also requires the equipment needed to actually run the
network.
Data infrastructure - probably bundled into the above
power infrastructure - gotta charge it somehow
and then a server loaded with apps and probably a library.
Oh, and people to run it all.
Now that bill becomes a lot higher. Actually trying to create the
infrastructure? Even higher.