JOHANNESBURG, S.AFRICA: South African phone firm Telkom could be fined 10 per cent of its annual revenue for abusing its near-monopoly in the market, the country's competition watchdog said on Wednesday.

After the announcement shares in the fixed-line operator dipped more than 3 per cent, and by 1133 GMT traded 3.51 per cent lower at 42.56 rand.

The competition watchdog recommended that the competition tribunal fine Telkom about 10 percent of it's turnover for the full-year ended March 31 2009.

The group posted an operating revenue of 35.9 billion rand in the period.

The investigation comes after a complaint by the Internet Service Providers Association and other Internet service providers including MTN's unit Verizon South Africa, Mweb and Internet Solutions, a unit of Dimension Data.