Extra shifts are being planned at a Shipley-based electronics company which is making equipment to support the roll-out of 4G mobile phone services in the UK, including in Bradford, which became one the first three UK cities to be connected to a new network this week.

Radio Design Ltd, which produces 2,000 mobile telecommunications components a week and is the UK leader in its field, has recruited 30 new staff over the past three months and is set to have 200 employees by the end of its financial year.

Output has stepped up since May when mobile operators Vodafone and 02 knew which frequencies they had been allotted for their new 4G joint venture, which has launched services in Bradford, Leeds and London and is due to reach 13 cities by the end of the year.

Eric Hawthorn said: “It’s been frantic since the operators discovered which frequencies they will operate on.

“The work on 4G has meant expanding our manufacturing space, taking on extra staff and we’re thinking about starting additional shifts to maintain production and create more new jobs.

“4G has been a really big thing for us and a major challenge but has also enabled us to continue expanding.”

The company, which in 2011 received a Queen’s Award for Innovation, has developed a range of low and hi-tech products to support mobile phone companies’ developer 4G services.

In addition to the Vodafone-02 network, Radio Design also supplies equipment for EE which has offered 4G mobile data in the UK since last October and announced it had reached 100 towns earlier this week.

It also makes equipment for network operators in Western Europe and Mr Hawthorn expects demand from Eastern European to start coming on stream in the near future as 4G develops there.

Products made by Radio Design for the UK market include filters to prevent TV screens going blank due to 4G interference, which it supplies to a firm called At800 – a joint venture between the main mobile operators. Radio Design also has a base in India supplying pr components for mobile networks and in China where its has a hardware servicing and repair operation.

Guy Laurence, chief executive of Vodafone UK, said 4G was a “step change” that would allow people to watch football matches or download thousands of songs from services such as Spotify on the go. He said Vodafone had already signed up 20,000 customers to the new service.

He said 4G uses old television frequencies which would allow the signal to penetrate into houses far more effectively than 3G. New planning laws would also allow the firm to erect transmitters in areas it could not before, he said.