Net Neutrality - Can someone please define it?

There has been a lot of talk about net neutrality in recent years, but what does it really mean? I've talked about this before (Net Neutrality, Part 2, September 2, 2010) and I can't say that I understand it yet. But the following article helps clear things up for me a bit.

From Pajamas Media:
"Just What Do They Mean by ‘Net Neutrality’?" by Charles Martin
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/just-what-do-they-mean-by-net-neutrality/?singlepage=true

Martin makes the point that what was originally understood by the phrase net neutrality has morphed into something much larger. And it is difficult to gain consensus when people are not even using the same definitions.

From Martin:

"The frustrating part: when you examine the arguments closely, it’s clear that no two commentators appear to be talking about the same thing."

"This led to the first push for net neutrality, of a sort that we might call net neutrality of the first kind, or 'content neutrality.'"

"The push for net neutrality, however, was quickly picked up by other people for other political purposes, starting with the idea that 'net neutrality' meant that everyone ought to have equal access to Internet service, whether they live in the borough of Manhattan, or Manhattan, Kansas, or in a cabin twelve miles by road from the nearest human habitation. This quickly picked up other ideas: that 'net neutrality' meant different ethnic groups have equal access — which would mean the government looking not just at the content of the messages, but the race of the person on the wire; or that different viewpoints ought to have equal access to the Internet — so, potentially, Fox News would be limited based on how much bandwidth the Huffington Post consumed, and even that 'hate speech' and 'lies' could be regulated."

"This is what we might call net neutrality of the second kind: not content-neutral, but instead, content 'fairness.'"

"Stated that baldly, a lot of people would object (and rightly, I believe)."

"This, then, is the question I think everyone must ask when discussing net neutrality: do we mean the content-neutral, don’t read-the-postcards net neutrality of the first kind? Or the 'fair access' net neutrality of the second kind?"