Comment 23 for bug 950662

Best workaround sofar:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/213614/waiting-for-network-configuration-problem
and
http://askubuntu.com/questions/144743/ubuntu-server-12-04-waiting-for-network-configuration-and-network-down

edit /etc/network/interfaces

Remove (or comment out) everything, only leave:

#The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

This will bring up wifi and a signal indicator is visible.
However, sofar nm-applet does not indicate signal strength nor does it show a list of available wireless networks. I will update when I find a solution for that.