HAVANA — Cuba will offer its citizens full internet access for mobile phones beginning this week, becoming one of the last nations to enable such service.

Cubans can begin contracting 3G service for the first time on Thursday, Mayra Arevich, the president of the state-run telecommunications company, Etecsa, announced on national television on Tuesday night.

Until now, Cubans have had access only to state-run email accounts on their phones.

The Cuban government has been building a 3G network in cities across the island, and some tourists, Cuban government officials and foreign businesspeople have had access to it for several years.

The communist-governed island has one of the world’s lowest rates of internet use, but that has been expanding rapidly since Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro restored full diplomatic relations between their two countries in 2014.